The Impossible Machines
by Crota-sama's Number 1 Fan
Summary: Three new Guardians rise, centuries after their deaths. How will they face the Darkness which threatens the remnants of humanity?
1. Operation 0: Prologue

_We called it the Traveller. And its arrival changed us forever. Great cities were built on Venus, Mercury became a garden world. Human lifespan tripled. It was a time of miracles. We stared out into the galaxy and knew that it was our destiny to walk in the light of other stars... but the Traveller had an enemy. A Darkness which had hunted it for aeons across the black gulfs of space. Centuries after our Golden Age began, this Darkness found us, and that was the end of everything... But it was also a beginning._ — The Speaker

* * *

 _Hello? Hello? Hello?_  
 _Is there anybody in there?_  
 _Just nod if you can hear me_  
 _Is there anyone at home?_

Patrol was as boring as it always was. The Fallen milling around the compound weren't even worth the time to pick off, though occasionally the Hunter liked to set them on their proverbial toes by sniping the occasional Shank just to prove the point that humanity wasn't going anywhere. Idly, she wondered if Earth was where the alien race sent their cast-offs, the 'problem children' of their apparently militaristic society, the dregs they wanted to be rid of.

Come to think of it, they did call their shock troops 'Dregs', didn't they?

 _Come on now_  
 _I hear you're feeling down_  
 _Well I can ease your pain_  
 _Get you on your feet again_

More importantly, the newer, less-experienced Guardians needed to cut their proverbial teeth in a firefight or two; her only real job here was to make sure they didn't bite off more than they could chew. Or, more often, the former corpse of some newly-resurrected 'KinderGuardian' would be right smack in the middle of territory crawling with Fallen. Then she'd have to go and fish the newbie out if things got too hot. So here she was, perched up on top of what was probably once a radio tower, sitting on her ass with a canister of coffee and her lunch while her Ghost provided some entertainment from his database of classical music. Cayde-6 was going to owe her after this. Something from his extra-special stash, she was thinking. Something expensive.

 _There is no pain you are receding_  
 _A distant ship smoke on the horizon_  
 _You are only coming through in waves_  
 _Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying_

Phantom pain? That thought made her smile bitterly. Much of her life now was dedicated to burying pain that most Guardians were lucky enough to have forgotten. As much as she tried to pretend it didn't exist, it insisted on surfacing at some very inconvenient moments. Just her luck that when her eyes opened for the first time after she had been revived to the sight of her Ghost, she could recall fragments of a largely unhappy former life. Part of her wished she could have stayed peacefully dead, but this new life wasn't so bad, even with all the aliens who wanted to kill them. That is, at least when she could ignore her past life and the fact that everyone she ever seemed to care about died and left her behind.

Her previous life. Many people would be bitter about becoming a mere soldier from a position of relative privilege, but as far as she was concerned, it had been a damn good trade. Like most Hunters, she valued her independence and freedom, but she was in a rare position to especially appreciate those virtues. And gradually, the pain and bitterness would fade away for a time while she reflected on what she was now and what she could do. The price was becoming numbed to other emotions, but like giving up the privileges of her past life, it had hardly been a sacrifice.

 _I have become comfortably numb_

Maybe. It certainly was pretty comfortable. Just don't think on these things too much.

 _When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse_  
 _Out of the corner of my eye_  
 _I turned to look but it was gone_  
 _I cannot put my finger on it now_  
 _The child is grown_  
 _The dream is gone_

No, she wasn't a child any more, and being given the opportunity to fight a real evil and save all of humankind was the sort of second chance she would have never dreamed of. She'd never had any dreams of her own worth saving, anyway.

 _I have become comfortably numb_


	2. Operation 1: Cold Wind to Valhalla

**THE RAMPARTS**  
 **FORMER NORTH AMERICAN EMPIRE, EARTH**

The light breeze stirred throughout the complex, a movement of air that led a soft parade through the cancer-blighted concrete and oxidized metal. A slight touch of wind moved past, leaving the whisper of sound behind, and as he awoke, Slaine Troyard could only recall two things: that he had a name, and that he was alive.

Where he'd come to wasn't exactly normal, nor was forgetting where he was, either. The remains of faded paint lay on a wall before him: -ARY BARR CKS, F OOR 6D. The script gave no indicator of where he was, or for that matter what he was doing here. And though he wracked his mind mightily to come up with some – any – kind of result, he found his mind was as bare as the cracked walls before him; possibly moreso, given that the walls at least had the stains of rust and age on them.

"Excuse me, Guardian?" Slaine heard the voice: clear, bright, with hints of both subservience and authority. A memory rose from the blank slate that was his mind, but before he could grasp it, it faded back into the foggy shroud within his Cartesian theatre. Regardless, it was another person here, and that meant both help and a chance to find out who he was and the reason for his presence.

Blearily opening blue eyes flecked with green, he tried to train his attention in the direction of the other speaker. But the question came to him: Guardian? Was that a rank? Was that his rank? And if so, what did he guard? Or who?

"Up here, if you please." Slaine shifted his eyes upward to spy not a human being, but a construct of a light grey metal that didn't easily come to mind. Angular and geometric, at the centre of it was a green eye composed of an angled, rounded square. Briefly glistening with blue energy, the object seemed to hum – not with the cyclic, steady drone of machinery, but with the uneven, musical tones of a person all too pleased with himself.

"Good!" the object chirped in what sounded like an audio smile. "I was worried I'd never find you!"

Slaine could feel his expression shift into a puzzled frown; so the voice had been addressing him, after all. Was it a transmitter of some kind, with the speaker elsewhere? Confused, he ran his hand over his face...or would have, had it not come into abrupt contact with the visor of a helmet instead. As if that hadn't enough to shock him fully awake, he was further stunned to find his hands covered in thick gloves. _Not gloves_ , he corrected himself as he held his hands up, studying them and flexing his fingers experimentally, carefully eyeing the make of these handsheathes. _Gauntlets – the gear of ground forces, not pilots_ , he realised, though how he knew exactly that was beyond his immediate ken.

Made of rigid grey graphene plating over flexible black quilt that was likely a carbon fibre weave, they were hardly the sort of thing he could have just fallen asleep in. Nor, for that matter, would he have fallen asleep on cold, hard metal dressed in armour and what appeared to be a heavy coat that nearly reached his ankles, in the centre of the skeletal ruin of what could have only been a very large machine, and around that rusting ruins of what seemed to be hull plating that contrasted with the shattered concrete of the building itself.

"You've been dead a long time, so you're going to see a lot of things that aren't going to make sense."

With a soft groan, he hefted himself up, looking around. The wreckage and overgrowth of scrub brush around him appeared to confirm the diminutive machine's story; it also served to point out that the detritus had been here a very long time, if the nearby bleached bones of a small animal were anything to go by. But how was it possible for someone who had supposedly been dead for years to be revived? For some reason, the idea that he'd been dead didn't so much disturb him so much as confuse him, in all likelihood because his mental fog persisted. _This has to be a dream_ , he thought. _It's too strange to be real_.

"Nothing makes sense," he murmured as he got unsteadily to his feet, the sound a firm _crunch_ as heavy boots landed on the ground. "So, how am I alive?"

"That would be my doing. I'm a Ghost," the device attempted to explain, though that only told him that this machine was in fact some form of artificial intelligence. What exactly a 'ghost' was, however, remained a mystery. Something in his mind for a second recalled an advanced AI program being run, but just as quickly as the metaphorical light in his mind had come alive, it smoked out amongst the shadows of his amnesia. "Now, I'm _your_ Ghost, and I'll explain more later but first we need to get out of here. The Fallen could be here any minute and we really don't want to be here if there's a captain running around. So I need to find you a weapon and some way to the City. Come on."

It was more than a little bizarre to be ordered around by a machine, but Slaine realised he had little other choice that to acquiesce if he hoped to find out just what was going on. And just what did this 'ghost' mean by 'the city'? Was it a reference to an actual urban area, or a codeword for the nearest military facility? Or even something else, entirely? Without a clear frame of reference, he couldn't ponder on other possibilities.

Still disoriented from his apparent resurrection, his first few steps were unsteady as he followed the peculiar machine. Fortunately, after a few strides the haze seemed to wear off and he quickened his pace. A strangled, animal-like roar in the distance told him it had been none too soon. Though some part of him urged him forward, the logical part of his mind protested that it hardly mattered. _Better not to take that chance_ , his instincts insisted.

"Fallen!" the Ghost exclaimed in a voice that sounded a little too worried. "We need to move! There, in that building over there!"

His head snapped towards the direction it appeared to indicate, already breaking into a run for the nearest concrete building somehow still standing, overgrown with rope-like ivy and the dried remains of mushrooms and lichen, trying not to trip over them. Scattered flora were in his way, the result of a natural growth pattern over centuries in a place where such vegetation was anathema to the local order. "What is this place? Some kind of military installation?"

Ghost swivelled to the right and then to the left, the gesture suggesting that it was examining their surroundings, its mechanical eye casting a dim glow on nearby surfaces. "Not that I want to alarm you, but this appears to have been a prison; a disciplinary barracks, specifically – a _military_ prison."

The observation caused Slaine to stumble as he attempted to navigate the rubble. "A _**what**_? Why would..." He trailed off as he reconsidered, scrambling over a large chunk of concrete and rebar; a quick glance to his right showed the massive hole in the wall of where this destroyed portion had been part of the bulwark. "I suppose it would make sense if I'd been one of the guards here, if you think I can use a weapon." The blond-haired young man wasn't so sure of that himself. "If we can _find_ a weapon, that is."

The odd machine bobbed in front of him as he picked his way over broken concrete as if shrugging, his tone unsettlingly cavalier. "Well, even if you were a prisoner, it doesn't matter. As long as you can wield the Light – and you can because I revived you – it doesn't matter what you were. After the Collapse, humanity needs all the Guardians it can get. And I need to get you a gun, or this will be the shortest career that I know of."

"That's not very reassuring," Slaine protested even as he searched, shoving the fresh questions to the back of his mind. Humanity needed him? For what? Did it have something to do with the state of his surroundings? Furthermore, if he was here, at a military prison, had he been a guard? Or an inmate? Or, given where he came to, just someone with the bad luck to have died in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Unfortunately, the low light inside made his task difficult. He had been led into what had probably once been a common area of some kind, and though each one of the narrow windows had been shattered, they admitted little in the way of sunlight. Slaine wondered if there even anything which still functioned somewhere among the ruins. As if reading his thoughts, the Ghost commented, "I'll do something about that light. Fallen thrive in the dark, but we won't."

"Why's that?" Slaine inquired.

"From what intelligence we have, they can naturally see in infrared." The ghost disappeared suddenly in a small shower of light motes for only a few moments before a few fluorescent lights flickered on, the illumination marginally better. "That should do it," the Ghost's voice echoed with a satisfied tone from somewhere in its dissipated state. "Now, about that weapon…."

The towheaded Guardian didn't bother for his companion to keep looking around, as the answer lay before him. Sitting on a bunch of crates that had somehow managed to last the ravages of time, was a rifle and several magazines next to it. As he picked it up, somehow he knew that it was a Howa Type 64 carbine, derisively nicknamed the _Atare_ by its users, as the word – meaning 'to hit the target' – was engraved next to the fire selector switch for reasons never made clear. As he hefted it, he noticed that the gun's strap, usually made of leather or vinyl, had been a victim to time and all that remained with the harness clips at either end of the gun. As for the Howa itself, the gun's scope was cracked but serviceable, and while most of the magazines looked like they could still be used, one of them had a round jammed in the wrong way. If there had been free time, he would have reloaded it, but for now, he just slipped it in one of his pockets for safekeeping.

Getting a feel for the weapon, he didn't seem to give much concern that his hands moved on their own, as if through extensive muscle memory. He loaded, cocked and aimed the weapon back down the entryway and where he'd been, before moving into cover on the right side of the portal, facing the courtyard with his back to the wall.

"Ohhhkay," the Ghost drawled. "That'll work. I hope you know how to use that thing."

He sincerely hoped he sounded more confident than he felt, though strangely, his hands were steady on his weapon. Still, could he really do this? "So do I."

As he peered out from behind his cover, he caught his first glimpse of the hostile aliens engaged in some form of chattering communication which had given their position away. He wasn't sure if the two pairs of beady, glowing, pupil-less eyes and the single crimson plume rising at the tops of each head were simply features of their helmets, but their overall appearance – as well as their chattering language – reminded him somehow of insects.

"Dregs," his Ghost whispered.

Whatever they were, they had incredibly sharp senses; apparently the machine's 'helpful' identification gave away his own position. But even as they opened fire with some form of energy pistol, one shot to each head was more than enough to bring them down. With each shot escaped an unidentifiable white gaseous substance, though he wasn't sure what he had expected from insectoid beings.

Regardless of his personal feelings on the matter, Slaine was now involved in this mysterious war.

* * *

 **THE COSMODROME**  
 **OLD RUSSIA, EARTH**

As unsettled as he might have otherwise been by the situation he found himself in, Inaho Kaizuka felt strangely removed from both his actions and his surroundings. When he woke in the decaying ruins of what could have only been a spaceport, surrounded by a sea of wreckage amidst broken and rusted automobiles, it was not his emotions which rejected the possibility of having been dead for centuries. It should not have been possible according to the laws of physics, his logical mind insisted. Yet, he would not have simply fallen asleep in a destroyed complex, he was certain. The steppes beyond the compound were equally inhospitable: rocky wastelands of scrub-lined cliffs and freezing waters, which raised the interesting but not immediate question of what he had been doing in such an inhospitable setting.

It was as if he was observing another person entirely through his russet eyes, calmly making his way through the winding and half-collapsed corridors, shooting each alien hostile cleanly through the head with a short burst from the automatic rifle he had scavenged from a half-destroyed crate. Three of them – Fallen, the artificial intelligence had called them – had descended from the rafters in the dock he currently occupied, a temporary shelter from both the harsh winter environment and enemy squads. Muffled alien roars and a barrage of energy filled the air, but the vaguely vespoid aliens were dispatched within a matter of seconds, leaving him wondering if the escaping gas was some form of life-support.

The mechanical device calling itself a 'ghost' hovered beside him, and for a moment Inaho expected it to tell him where to go next.

"...Oh. Yes, you definitely know how to use that thing."

Inaho ignored the comment, studying the exposed pipes and wires jutting out of the crumbling concrete walls as he moved from the dock into an adjacent hallway. If he could find some way to get to the top of the building, he would be in a much better observational position...at least until his Ghost found transport to the 'city' it had alluded to. The writing on the walls was of no help in directing him, composed of indecipherable letters. _Cyrillic_ , the word formed in his head, though he was certain Russian was not a language he understood with any fluency. A combination of specific letters, ' _PфбA_ ', repeated frequently.

The inside of the compound provided better cover and wind-shielding than the wilderness outside, but studying the enemy's movements would be much more difficult. After comparing his options, Inaho concluded the odds were more favourable by remaining inside the enclosure. "The gas escaping from their armour. Can you identify its composition?"

While he had an entire list of more questions – why the pistol-wielding ones identified as 'Dregs' only had two arms while the rifle-wielding 'Vandals' had four, for example – the ones not of immediate strategic value would have to wait. As would questions about himself, such as why his memories other than his name were completely absent and why he seemed to instinctively know how to use the Khvostov 7G-02 he temporarily wielded. If he couldn't remember going through the necessary training, he shouldn't be able to remember how to use a weapon in the first place. Muscle memory alone would not have provided him a name to go along with the ancient rifle. There was undeniably much more going on than his Ghost was currently sharing with him.

"That substance is called Ether," Ghost explained, ignorant of Inaho's line of thought. "Fallen need it to survive, and it's distributed by their Servitors. Hopefully, we won't encounter one here."

The neophyte Guardian's expression never changed from behind his helmet, but his puzzlement was clear enough in the question itself, even if the inflection was missing in his voice. "Why not? If their supply is cut off, it could force them to retreat."

It would also, he didn't explain, force them off without needing to kill them. As much as he could pick out what could have been alien words from their harried communications to each other, clearly none were interested in a non-violent solution, and forcing them into retreat would have been far preferable. Something compelled him to avoid needless conflict, and not simply out of practicality.

The Ghost twitched in what would have likely been nervousness in an organic life-form. "You're not adequately-equipped to take one on yet," it explained. "Believe me, we'll be facing them soon enough, but you need better armour and weapons, not to mention a jumpship to reach the City."

Finding what appeared to be serviceable ammunition, the brown-haired young man quickly reloaded his temporary rifle before glancing through the cracked scope. The damage hadn't been terribly distracting, but it was a convincing enough sign that he needed a more serviceable weapon in the long run. "That will be difficult if we encounter one."

Tilting downward slightly, the artificial intelligence seemed to examine him with agitation. "In that case, we run. I didn't revive you just for you to die again."

Two more Dregs emerged from their hiding places in an explosion of startled roars and were dispatched with a few more well-placed shots in the dead-centre of their chests. _No gas escaped this time_ , he noted. "That would be inconvenient," Inaho remarked even as his gaze swept the area for more hostiles, his voice never deviating from a deadpan.

The Ghost hovered at his right shoulder, cocking itself in a way that suggested it was peering into his face. "You're very calm about all this."

The Guardian's expression remained impassive as he overturned a crate and plucked several more ammunition magazines from its spilled contents before backing against the wall adjacent to a door leading out into a large open area between the ruined buildings. Fortunately, he apparently didn't have to rely on his eyes alone to watch for potential violent surprises; there was apparently a reasonably-accurate radar built into his helmet. "Should I not be?"

The fact was that he had no choice but to keep his wits about him and moving forward if he hoped to get some answers. He couldn't afford to panic...or rather, his first instinct was to shut down. His emotions were already distant, but his mind strained to keep functioning. Worse, Inaho felt as if he had forgotten something important. Multiple somethings, actually, as if there were people he was supposed to be protecting.

"No, no...that's a good thing. I was just expecting my job to be a lot harder."

A mild curiosity overtook him. "What's your job?"

Whomever had programmed the artificial intelligence had done expert work at mimicking human mannerisms; Inaho was every bit as confused by the Ghost's as he was a normal human being. That in itself was yet another mystery: how did he know that and why was he incapable of understanding human expression?

"To find and revive you," the diminutive machine explained. "I was made by the Traveller with its dying breath to find the Guardian I was meant to find. And I've been searching a very long time."

Now Inaho was even more bemused. He couldn't begin to unravel how this was even possible within the realms of physics, and he was not content to simply accept such impossibilities on the surface. But then, if such things were truly impossible, then they should not be occurring in the first place, in which case he would expend all his efforts to discover _why_. There was, of course, the likelihood his mind was simply hallucinating...but then, he was reasonably certain he would have been having much more realistic hallucinations. For the time being, there was little to do other than simply have patience; the answer would present itself soon enough.

Once he was reassured that his path was clear, he swiftly bridged the distance to the closest neighbouring building of the compound, periodically taking cover behind the ubiquitous crates and half-destroyed concrete walls before ducking inside the open bay. If there were more Fallen further inside, it might have been best to circumvent the building, but there might be some valuable salvage otherwise missed. It depended entirely on the potential forces within and what he could use from the environment.

However, the state of ruin limited possibilities considerably. If there were more of the exposed pipes he'd noticed in the previous building and they were active gas lines, they would be invaluable if he could find something flammable. Unfortunately, to judge from the state of the facility, the probability was slim. _Less than 20%_ , he decided at his best rough guess.

Inaho then turned his attention back to the exposed wires spanning the length of the corridor along the ceiling. Much of the insulation seemed to have worn away, and a few of the wires themselves appeared dead. Still, he would only require a few live ones to carry out the plan forming in his head. It would be dangerous and he would have to find some way of handling them, but it was nevertheless a possibility. Now all he needed was a water source.

His attention returned to the pipes. Carefully balancing on a collapsed part of the wall – not especially stable, but it would have to do – he raised his hand and tapped one gently with the knuckle of his index finger. The sound was muted, not the hollowness he would have expected from gas. That meant water most likely; even if it was stagnant and contaminated, it would be more than adequate for his purpose. That there was anything at all was almost miraculous; standard metal would have rusted and broken while plastic polymer would have cracked over the years. Some sort of nanocarbon composite, perhaps? Not that he had time to ponder just how long he had apparently been dead by studying material weathering in lieu of searching for structural weaknesses.

Now, if there was something like acetone or chlorine…though finding something like that in an ancient facility where everything was labelled in Cyrillic lowered the potential considerably. _Then again_ , he considered as he eyed his weapon and revised his plan for a surprise attack, _I might not need it_.

* * *

 **LONDON**  
 **EUROPEAN DEAD ZONE, EARTH**

The first thing she saw when she came to was that she held the hand of a skeleton. Frightened, she let it go, but as the bones fell to the ground, she couldn't help but feel a horrible sense of loss, as if this was a loved one or someone she knew. She couldn't comprehend why, but it just felt that way.

It took several minutes for her to calm down. Even more for her understand and comprehend the strange device that had approached her like another being and had told her that whatever she was in the past, she was now a Guardian, a wielder of light and Light. There has to be a difference in the way the rather cute robot with the chipper voice said that.

But the robot – a ghost, the robot had described herself as – urged her forward, pushing her on, stating there was danger otherwise. And if there was something that Asseylum Vers Allusia had discerned since the moment she opened her eyes, was that this was a dangerous world she'd come back to...and that danger was likely an understatement.

Now, as she moved through ruined cobblestone streets with tall grasses growing up through the cracks and venues lined with fire-scored ancient brick and stone buildings of varying styles of architecture overgrown with ivy under a grey sky, she wondered what had happened to this world. She couldn't remember much, but what she could remember were laughing children and friendly folk, not and rusted overturned vehicles dotted with the bleached skeletons of those long gone. In the previous setting, Asseylum would never have imagined herself fighting for her life.

In truth, she wanted no part in the taking of blood; surely there was some way to talk to these alien soldiers, persuade them that there was some way to negotiate acceptable terms? Even without the guidance of memories, the green-eyed young woman felt an underlying need to mediate, to find some form of common ground in order to reach a peaceful solution. She hated fighting and war; if she knew nothing else about herself, she knew that much. The results of these were all around her, justifying her core beliefs, the skeletons of victims scattered around her which made her heart feel as if it was being twisted inside her chest. _So much wanton death_ , she thought sorrowfully.

Alas, not only did the alien language elude her understanding – rendering diplomacy impossible – but the Fallen in question didn't seem interested in mediation. Not a single one so much as hesitated before screaming in alarm and firing at her, though perhaps all they knew of the world was the law of kill or be killed. She was obviously an enemy to them, and there was no way to persuade them otherwise – she had to wonder if they even understood the concept of peace. In the end, she had no choice but to prioritise her own self-preservation, especially given that her Ghost had revived her to save humanity.

Moreover, the Ghost-machine was likewise insistent that they weren't especially interested in talks with a human, much less a Guardian. "We don't really know much about the Fallen...or any of the other aliens fighting the human remnant, for that matter. But whatever the case might be, they're not here to talk. And we don't have much time. So the best way would be to find a ship, clear a path to it, and get to the City."

Reluctantly, Asseylum agreed even as she ducked behind a crumbling stone wall covered in moss, rifle in hand. She wanted to focus on the sky for some reason; when the rain-heavy clouds broke, the inviting and strangely warm azure which threatened to pull her in. Why was that? "You're right," she agreed, reluctantly focusing on her dire situation. "And...I don't want to kill any more than I have to. What should I do?"

The Ghost appeared to consider something for a moment. "This would probably be a good time to learn how to use your Light."

"My Light?"

The Ghost seemed pleased. "It's the power of the Traveller..." the Ghost hastily added, "I'll explain about that later. The important thing is that you have a special ability which you can use it against the Darkness. Think about how you might fight if you didn't have a weapon. Think about an absolute and relentless evil, and then how to fight it."

 _If I didn't have a weapon?_ At first, the question didn't bring anything to mind; she didn't want to fight in the first place. Maybe this whole conflict was a misunderstanding, or the Fallen were desperate for some reason? Maybe they were somehow running out of the Ether that their machine gods provided? There were countless possible reasons for their attacks; nothing could be absolutely evil. "I can't fight them like that, thinking that they're evil."

A mechanical chirp answered her. "It isn't the Fallen who are evil, although they're a bit...well, insane. It's the Darkness controlling them. Unfortunately, we don't know enough about them yet to help them, so the only thing we can do is to put them out of their misery."

That certainly didn't sit right with her. The aliens were victims? Why hasn't anyone attempted to free them, if they understood that much? Regretfully, at the moment she was in no position to simply ask, and it was entirely possible that this avenue had already been tried. It was more than a little arrogant to think she alone had considered peace.

Peace. It was that concept that, strangely, drew out a peculiar warmth within her. It was as if the sun hanging overhead in that impossibly blue sky reached out to her, its arms of heat encircling her in an embrace, then filling her whole being with its heat. Heat...and power. A purifying power to fight that 'absolute evil' which threatened to destroy and consume everything. _Maybe_ , she considered, _there really are true malevolent forces which only want to annihilate everything we think of as good_.

In this dreamlike trance, her body seemed to move on its own as she suddenly came out from behind her cover, and she could feel her entire body filled with warmth. The alien screams of alarm filled her ears as they were made aware of her presence, but all too late. Her upraised right hand was engulfed in blazing, red-tinged golden light as she threw an orb of burning Light into the mob, incinerating them in a mere matter of seconds. As regretful as the loss of life was, it was at the same time a quick and therefore perhaps merciful death. Strangely, the fires the grenade caused left the surrounding area intact. Whatever had set the ruined city ablaze centuries ago, it wasn't with a power similar to hers.

"That! That's...surprising," the Ghost exclaimed. "Usually, Warlocks aren't Sunsingers inherently. Ikora will be fascinated."

Asseylum blinked owlishly. "Sunsingers?" And who was Ikora, for that matter?

The flustered floating machine was rather cute, she decided, as it twitched while it hovered beside her. "You're better off asking the Warlocks once we get to the City. Speaking of which..."

Seeming to disappear into a wall, it reappeared shortly at the entrance to a corridor through at the back of the bay. "I'm detecting that ship we need. Let's hope it's still in one piece."


	3. Operation 2: All Along The Watchtower

"Well," the Ghost reported, sounding reluctant. "The good news is that I've found a ship."

Slaine reloaded shells into the shotgun he'd temporarily swapped the rifle out for, his back to the wall as he warily glanced out into the next corridor. The range was terrible, but he was more than grateful for the knock-back when several "Dregs" – he wondered if that was their actual name, or just an observation the Ghost had made regarding their apparent flunky status – had gotten too close, pulling out long knives just as they had gotten within range before being taken down. It had been an unexpected but good find, even if the last time it had been used was probably against another human being. Better not to think about that right now...or the fact that these aliens were likewise sapient beings. Even if they were being controlled by this mysterious "'Darkness"', even if this was supposedly a mercy, that hardly meant he had to like it. In fact, the very idea repulsed him.

"Er...what's the bad news?"

"It's surrounded by Fallen,." came the vocalized, slightly digitally-reverberated reply.

Bloodshed, it would appear, was inevitable. "Of course it would be," he muttered in resignation.

The passage looked clear enough, and nothing was showing up in the immediate vicinity on the Light Detection And Ranging system built into the helmet, but Slaine nevertheless proceeded cautiously, retrieving the rifle from the magnetic harness and replacing it with the shotgun.

Carefully, the Guardian circumvented areas displaying in red on the LIDAR, likely going well out of his way to reach whatever hangar the promised ship lay rusting in. If it could at least fly, he might be able to reach at least a relatively safe – or at least Fallen-free area – to scavenge enough parts to patch it up for the much longer trip to the City. That was, of course, assuming he could avoid further conflicts. The issue of being able to find more ammo aside, he had already used one of his pulse grenades and he could already tell it would be a while before he could use one again. The way his Ghost explained it to him was that this mysterious "Light" was akin to a renewable resource of energy where the necessary reserves would take time to recharge before another grenade could manifest. It was a little inconvenient, but not something he could do anything about. He should be grateful he could even do anything of the sort at all.

Despite the situation, he couldn't help but smile at the memory of the first time he'd thrown one – it had been unintentional as what he'd been trying to do was merely concentrate this so-called Light into a weapon. At least, that's what the Ghost had told him to do, but whatever it had been expecting was not what could only be described as a grenade of pure ball lightning. The humour of the memory was in how the Ghost, a faceless entity, had somehow visibly expressed utter shock through its features. Once it had gotten over said shock, the Ghost had explained that the ability to condense raw electrical current into a throwable object was an ability only known to individuals called "Stormcallers". Having previously established he was a particular kind of Guardian known as a "Warlock", the Ghost finally explained why he'd been shocked: Warlocks being resurrected as Stormcallers was unheard of. Having only occurred within the past hour or two, all the terms Ghost had thrown around were still bouncing around in his head trying to make sense of themselves, though the time for making sense of a dictionary's worth of terms was not now. What he now was and what these powers of his were from – aside from the cryptic references to "the Traveller" – whomever he was – were still a mystery to him, but all that mattered currently was he was quickly learning to use his new-found abilities and they would become very handy to him very soon.

In the meantime, it was challenging enough navigating through the weathered ruins and the vegetation tangled within it, what with the added feeling of racing against time despite not knowing how much time was left on the clock. Nothing that couldn't be overcome, though, even with the occasional pocket or two of Dregs badly needing bullet implants in their vitals before they could put the same into his. Oddly, a small part in the back of his mind wouldn't have minded – _welcomed,_ even – the onset of death's embrace by such means, but such fatalistic inclinations were quickly ignored. He'd already been dead and was not desperate to be a corpse again any time soon.

"Huh," the Ghost mused, the construct twisting around in a chorus of mechanical grinding and electronic chirps, as its optical lens focused on the peculiar metal grating over a window. "Looks like the grating had a high-voltage charge; they were clearly trying to keep something in or out." The Ghost looked at Slaine and gave his final opinion on their locale: "This _was_ a military prison, all right."

Slaine thought on it, and the prognosis wasn't confidence-boosting in the least. With all the abilities he had – clearly that on the Special Operations level, if not super-elite – it likely meant that he hadn't been a guard, visitor or staff. Even the strongest of highly-trained soldiers could be stopped by enough firepower or armament, and not even the best of the best knew how to survive a round to the head.

"...Are you sure you revived the right person?" he muttered rhetorically, half-hoping his robotic companion wouldn't hear.

Unfortunately, the Ghost did. "I'm sure," the artificial intelligence assured him. "I've scanned countless corpses in countless areas for countless years...yours was the _only_ Light-compatible one I'd found."

Slaine had to give the Ghost credit; it appeared to understand his uncertainty. Not that he was probably hiding it all that well even through the helmet.

"If it's any comfort," Ghost continued, "The area I found you in was outside what I think were the holding cells. In fact, your corpse was in what looked like...well, it wasn't a ship exactly, but it had to have been some kind of military hardware. A big one, from the looks of it. Not a tank, but..."

A vague image emerged in his head of an elegant white construction duplicating a human form, which would have easily dwarfed the ruined buildings and even the towering trees he was currently desperately making his way through. Was it a memory, or something which his still-dazed mind conjured up? Though it just as quickly disappeared from his mind's eye, he was certain that whatever wreckage he had been revived from had been from something entirely different. "Some kind of big robot shaped kind of like a person?"

"That was awfully specific. But I think you might be right." The Ghost reacted as if recalling something he'd read. "There are ancient records of Golden Age hardware called 'kataphrakts' that were essentially well-oversized versions of your powered armour. However, the Vanguard has found so little evidence that most of it was considered PSYOPS."

Still, even if it wasn't the fleeting image he had imagined, Slaine figured something of a similar make would be more than useful. He might not even have to fight at all if he could salvage one, especially if it had flight capabilities. That still left a problem of a fuel source, but he'd worry about crossing that proverbial bridge when he got to it. "Is there anything like that around here which is still serviceable?" the towhead asked.

He got the sense of the Ghost shaking its head. "I'm afraid not," it responded with a regretful tone, dashing any potential plans Slaine had started to entertain. "A lot has been lost since the end of the Golden Age...we're lucky I've located so much as a jumpship in this mess. The Fallen really did a number on the place and they probably looted most of the useful hardware. That's to say nothing of how to even reconstruct such a machine, as it would be impossible in our current state – again, remember that any knowledge of it was classified as false intelligence. That's even assuming we could locate blueprints for..."

"I get it, I get it," Slaine waved his free hand impatiently. "Let's just find the ship and worry about possibilities later." However, this left him in a depressing scenario: things had come down to a very basic rule of survival. Either he fought his way out and found the mysterious sanctuary his Ghost alluded to...or he died here. But how would the odd AI fare in the latter scenario? Even if its human-like tendencies turned out to be nothing more than an illusion, and considering the fact it had flown all around countless places scanning dead people without having come into danger, in their brief time together he had come to think of it as alive, its apparent emotions real. "If I'm killed, what happens to you?"

"I'm bound to you now," it explained. "Even before I found you, the Traveller made me to find you. And if your Light is stolen, I'll die too."

That settled it; he couldn't drag someone else down with him, even a very quirky living machine. "Then we fight our way out, find a ship, and get to this City you mentioned."

"Glad we agree...watch it..."

Suddenly, red sections flared to life on Slaine's LIDAR even as he heard the warning, followed seconds later by more Fallen troops appearing with their weapons already drawn and firing. Unfortunately, the narrow corridor provided nothing in the way of cover and barely any more space to manoeuvre. Two Dregs managed to score several hits, the shield eating a few and the armour a few more, but one punched through it all, passing through Slaine's shoulder like a piece of paper. The sensation was akin to stabbed in the shoulder with a hot dagger. How he knew what either felt like remained a mystery like everything else, but whatever the case was, it hurt like hell.

Gritting his teeth to help bear the pain in his right shoulder, Slaine flattened himself against the wall as much as he could, using the structure to brace his arm long enough to quickly reload and dispatch the pair - and a third Fallen who had popped up from cover close to them. He fully expected a fresh wave of pain once the adrenaline started to wear off, but much to his surprise his injuries appeared to mend after a few moments of recovery. Even more surprising was that his armour was likewise repaired without so much as a scorch-mark. As convenient as this new-found regenerative ability was, it was likewise downright unsettling.

"The way to the ship is through here," the Ghost remarked, interrupting his train of thought while indicating a passageway off to the right.

If nothing else, Slaine reasoned, at least one good thing to come out of his current state was that he wouldn't be limping broken and bleeding all the way to this "City". Filing away questions about his increasing number of strange, new abilities – along will all the other questions gradually building up in his head – he followed the AI.

= Ψ =

The dim light cast from the Ghost helped negotiating the dark-engulfed passages, but there remained enough hidden obstacles the light couldn't illuminate to slow progress considerably...at least, when the Guardian was able to find and avoid them. He stumbled more than a few times over rubble and invading vines, until a particularly nasty tangle caused him to trip outright...directly into the path of a thin line of red laser.

A digital chirp sounded as a sensor went off, a blue light of reception flickered on the connecting mine, and the towhead only had enough time to think of something mildly sarcastic before the "shortest career" his artificial companion alluded to came to an end. That is, assuming that the Ghost was unable to work the same miracle it had before.

As luck would have it, instead of an explosive demise, the laser line had been connected to a dud and so both man and machine narrowly avoided death once more. Yet, even as he lay prone on the ground and heaved a heavy sigh of relief, Slaine wished he could recover from embarrassment as quickly as he now could from physical injury.

"Guardian?" The synthesised voice of his Ghost indicated it was hovering directly above him, its tones suggesting immense relief. "Thank the Traveller...you really had me worried there."

"Just took a sharp blow to the ego is all," the neophyte Warlock muttered as he lifted his head. He didn't dare move further until he could visually pinpoint more tripmines. He wasn't going to try getting lucky a second time, but at least he was able to easily located three more, the first of which was two yards away. "I only wish I'd found these without falling on my face." _Not to mention nearly getting myself killed_.

Picking himself up and brushing the dirt off the front of his coat, Slaine was able to study the improvised explosive devices better now that the immediate danger had passed and he could focus more clearly. A series of lines of red light criss-crossed and illuminated the narrow corridor ahead, each projected from a small digital device connected to an individual explosive unit. In the distance, Slaine could hear echoes of the Fallen's alien chatter, revealing their presence even as proximity warnings displayed on the helmet's LIDAR. They probably knew he was somewhere nearby, although that could work to his advantage, especially if they had ways of tracking him similar to his own. A plan started to form in his head, hopefully one more viable than his previous one.

Blue-green eyes shifted slightly to his Ghost, regarding it though the strip of visor. "It looks as if these are controlled digitally. Do you think you could hack the control device?"

The glowing eye disappeared for a moment as a shutter lowered over it. For all the world, it looked as if the thing had blinked in momentary surprise. "I...think so, yes. What did you have in mind?"

A few seconds of silence passed as the Guardian worked through his plan. "Deactivate all but the one closest to us and the one at the end of the corridor. And there are probably a lot more tunnels like this with these sensor mines...if you can do the same thing with the others, do it."

"I'll get right on it," it replied, beginning to cycle through the necessary processes and emitting a series of flashing lights. It was still something of a gamble, Slaine knew, trying to turn his enemies' own defences against them, but he would know soon enough whether or not it would work. If it didn't...well, he'd have to adapt to the situation quickly.

The Ghost only required a few seconds to complete its task before it spoke again. "That should do it. Now what?"

Without answering immediately, Slaine picked up a shard of concrete and tossed it into the path of the closest live laser before taking cover behind a water tank to wait. "Now we see if this works. Here goes nothing."

"Actually, it's a rock."

Slaine felt the corners of his mouth lift. He couldn't resist. "Actually, it's concrete."

"...Touché."

Suppressing a guffaw, the Guardian had only seconds to wait before his plan loudly announced that it had worked. The sound and vibrations of the explosion was first answered by a Dreg, tearing around the corner with a characteristic muffled scream. The alien was ready to finish off whatever work their traps had done, only to set off the IED at the far end; not a pleasant way to go, by any means. The next hostile was a bit cleverer, shifting to get a clear shot from around his cover and firing at Slaine from across the stretch, but the corridor and mines – deactivated, but the Vandal had no way of knowing that – clipped the Fallen's otherwise agile movements. One of the three blasts of energy managed to nick the Guardian painfully in the arm even as he shifted out from behind the tank and flattened himself against the floor, but the Fallen's restricted position gave Slaine an unobstructed shot at his head. Ether violently escaped through the rupture as the Vandal went down.

"Good work," his Ghost congratulated as he rose and dusted himself off with his left hand. "I would have suggested just shooting them, but that ended up working out a lot better. This must not have been your 'first rodeo', as it goes."

With the deactivated mines more or less intact, Slaine hid his apprehension at the suggestion he had been in battle before with a shrug before advancing to collect the explosives. They were positioned on opposite sides along the walls, alternating between the ceiling and the floor. Shooting each would permanently disable them, and the emitters themselves wouldn't be difficult to hit – given nothing was shooting at him at the moment – but doing so would have wasted both perfectly good ammo and the explosive charges. While he wasn't certain he could reactivate the emitters, the explosives themselves should still be viable...assuming he didn't blow himself up along the way.

"You want me to carry those?" asked the Ghost. "You're going to have your hands full until we get to that ship, metaphorically and literally."

Slaine remained sceptical, but he offered up what he'd collected. He only had time to blink before the IEDs promptly seemed to disappear into thin air. "What was…?"

Had the Ghost been human, he imagined it would be puffing its chest out with pride. "TransMat capabilities. I can store _much more_ than that."

Slaine decided against inquiring further – the most pressing question being just where were these devices being stored – as it would just become a distraction as he grappled with the current situation, along with all the other ones still in his head from earlier. With the corridor clear and no further warnings from the LIDAR, he was free to advance. But while that would normally be a positive, some mysterious instinct warned him not to relax his guard. If there had been other Fallen waiting further ahead, they must have retreated and were in all likelihood regrouping. It would be a mistake to think they had simply given up after all that. It wasn't as if there was any other choice but to press on towards what he could only hope was their way out of this battle zone.

That mysterious instinct proved its worth when they closed in on the jumpship's location. It was just as the Ghost had said; he counted at least seven Fallen soldiers and one which was clearly in a leadership position. Frustratingly, the alleged ship remained beyond his sight, likely in a nearby bay.

The construct seemed about to helpfully fill Slaine in again before the Stormcaller quickly put a finger to his mouth – or as best he could from behind a visor – and quietly signalled to the AI to keep quiet lest it unintentionally give their position away once again. It was probably going to let him know the Fallen with the different appearance and heavier armour was one of the 'captains' it mentioned earlier. Given the numbers and a much tougher opponent, he was definitely going to need a plan, and secrecy was of the essence.

Yet, before Slaine even had the chance to study the environment and find a way to employ the collected ordnance, his thoughts were interrupted by a nightmarish, ear-grating sound like the scream of twisting metal which made his blood run cold. When he turned to search for the source, the situation had taken a turn for the truly demented.

Spheres of inky, blue-tinged black coloration materialised out of nowhere, barrelling forward on a collision course directly into the large group of enemies standing between him and his goal. At first, he considered that some potential ally – or at least another enemy that he could use to his advantage – was attacking the Fallen, and their own apparent panic certainly seemed to suggest it. That optimism quickly died when he realized that in their wake, the mysterious black, smoke-like globes left not destruction in their wake, but a whole new batch of enemies similar in appearance, only coated in blue-black energy.

Slaine made sure to stay put; he doubted that he would fare any better being struck with whatever this attack was. However, his proven instinct screamed at him to get the hell out of there. _Now_. His Ghost only confirmed it by helpfully panicking with the question. "What _are_ these things?"

The Guardian's head snapped around, his gaze boring into the glowing eye of the construct. "You mean _you_ don't know?"

"No!" it insisted emphatically. "I've _never_ seen anything like this before!"

Whatever plan Slaine might have come up with in the meantime was quickly dashed when two of the unfamiliar hostiles quickly closed in on him in a series of jerky, yet rapid, zigzag movements. Neither entity wielded any weapons that could be discerned, but that hardly seemed to matter when the oddly-moving pair – seemingly coated in the smoky, blue-black energy of the orbs they'd spawned from – raked him painfully with what could now be identified as sharp claws before he could fire off a round of shots. He repaid the attack in kind soon enough by firing off multiple rounds before they could make another swipe at him.

Bizarrely, rather than falling to the ground and leaving corpses behind as he shot them, the aggressors disappeared in a way similar to their initial appearance, in a vortex of smoke-like energy. It was almost as if space itself had collapsed on them. As if _that_ hadn't made things considerably more difficult, the sound of gunfire had drawn the attention of the other glowing blue-black creatures, having already dealt with the Fallen. The odds were certainly not in his favour now.

* * *

Inaho had been reluctant to simply test one of his new abilities without engineering an optimal situation, but clearing out a bay of Fallen had produced, admittedly, not a bad result. The grenade had, rather than simply incinerating the hostile forces, instead forked into several seeking projectiles. That presented far more options than he had previously.

It was also worth it just for his artificial companion's reaction alone, rendering it speechless for a moment before sputtering in astonishment. "You can do that already?"

From behind his visor, he glanced blankly at his Ghost. Not that he understood what he'd actually _done_ exactly. "Make it do what?"

"You should only have a single vortex grenade," it attempted to explain. "Not an _Axion Bolt!_ "

The Guardian felt like sighing, though his expression remained the same as it had when he first awoke. _If only everything was as simple and straightforward as physics_. Somehow, he doubted this "Axion" had anything to do with the Peccei–Quinn theory...he shouldn't be able to manipulate cold dark matter in that way...that is, if it even was cold dark matter. At the moment, his strictly logical mind struggled with these seeming contradictions.

Then again, he shouldn't be alive at all. If the natural laws of biology had been subverted, it stood to reason that those of physics had as well...and dealing with that paradox was already taxing his mind well beyond his assumed limitations. He decided to ask the obvious instead. "What's an Axion Bolt?"

"I had...better let Ikora handle that question, not to mention how you can even do that right after a revivification. I didn't fully read up on all the abilities each Guardian type is expected to have."

 _Why would a machine need to read something?_ He quickly decided that it was a waste of precious time to ask; answers would not be forthcoming unless he made his way out. And the longer he was out here in this wasteland of scrub brush and ancient ruins, the further his chances of survival dropped. He needed to get through to the ship this Ghost claimed was waiting for them – assuming it was functional or at least could be made flight-worthy before the Fallen's reinforcements arrived – and find this safe haven long enough to prepare for wherever the future decided to lead him. That meant acting on his plan, however low the possibility of success. It was either that or a near 100% chance of a more permanent death. He certainly wouldn't have the answers his logical mind was demanding if he died again.

Fortunately, finding useful items had been easier than he had expected. Investigation of an intact locker produced a rusted pair of wire cutters and a plastic pole which, if he had to guess, had likely once been part of a mop. Upon further inspection, the locker had produced a utility knife with oxidation similar to the wire cutters hidden among the rubble at the bottom. But he would need to find insulated gloves to directly handle the wire, unless the gauntlets he had been resurrected with were sufficient enough to insulate without suffering electrical breakdown. And if they were a carbon weave as he suspected, he would have to find some suitable alternate way of handling live wires.

"What is the electrical resistivity of these?" Inaho inquired, holding up his hands to indicate what he was asking.

"I don't know the exact ohm⋅centimetres," the Ghost admitted. "But it wouldn't make any sense for them not to be able to resist high voltages, considering how there are a handful of Warlocks who specialise in harnessing the raw power of electricity...but that's neither here nor there right now. Short answer: probably enough for whatever you have in mind, but better to be safe than sorry. I can always revive you if that turns out not to be the case, but I'd rather not be shot at in the meantime."

It was just as well; Inaho was reluctant to test the limits of the construct's erstwhile resurrecting abilities. He opted to rig a marginally-safer way of handling the wire using the plastic pole, gradually widening the hanging notch with the utility knife. Under normal circumstances the task would have simply been frustrating, but the ever-present danger of Fallen potentially stumbling upon his location added a sense of urgency to the already painfully-slow task before the Warlock finally deemed it ready. Now all he had to do was carry out his plan without electrocuting himself.

This all assumed his plan would proceed as he envisioned it, given that there were countless variables involved. As unlikely as the possibility was, the water might not be sufficiently ionised or otherwise free from contaminants, or the water pressure or electrical current would turn out to be insufficient. These were only a few of possibilities which would render his careful plan useless, but he wouldn't know until it would be too late to correct for them.

A stray thought passed through his mind: _Adapt your plans to fit the situation! If you have to, trust your gut and make the call!_ For some reason, his inner voice had a feminine quality to it, as if it had been a woman who had given him this advice long ago. Yet, whatever memory the voice had been connected to remained elusive when he tried to focus on it. The Guardian decided to file that train of thought away for a later time when his life wasn't threatened, and simply followed the mysterious voice's advice.

Steadying himself on the most stable metal crate he could find before cutting the electrical cables with the wire cutters, he maintained a careful distance as they dropped to the ground. As the currents sought their way to the ground, he had visual confirmation that they were indeed live; he would have to proceed even more carefully from this point on.

After bracing the plastic pole with concrete rubble, the russet-eyed Warlock slowly threaded the cable through the widened notch, leaving enough slack on the feed to manoeuvre the end of the wire to the water pipe. From there, he carefully positioned the pole so that the exposed ends of the cable touched the pipe with the expected results. With his chances for survival now within acceptable parameters, Inaho was thankful that – at least for the moment – things were progressing according to plan.

The AI wasn't catching on immediately, however. "What in the world are you doing?"

While he wasn't annoyed precisely, his answer would have likely been interpreted as a curt one given that nearly all his concentration was focused on his task. "I hope to increase my chances of survival, and therefore yours."

The diminutive machine fell silent then, likely understanding that this was probably the most elaborate answer it was going to get as the Guardian had busied himself with his work before deeming it completed. It was more than a little disconcerting to hear an artificial life-form – if indeed that was what this Ghost was – accurately duplicate the average human response of a resigned sigh. Somehow, Inaho felt as if he got that response frequently.

Gradually inching towards the end of the corridor, the Warlock stopped just short of the entrance to what seemed to be a receiving dock, hiding behind a section of wall. His Ghost hadn't piped up with any declarations that the ship they sought was inside, so it was likely safe to assume that it wasn't there. Either that, or it had learned from their previous experience to be more discreet when there were enemies less than ten yards away from the pair. Whatever the case was, its silence was greatly appreciated given the surprise attack Inaho readied to unleash upon the six Fallen congregated within.

Silently shifting back away from the doorway, he got into the necessary position, crouching down behind a metal crate. Its cover was minimal, but it would be enough for his purposes. More importantly, it was low enough to allow him to steady his dominant arm on the top, carefully training the auto rifle's cracked sights on a joint-in water pipe as it curved up across the corrugated ceiling of the bay. The tell-tale pop of gunfire alerted the Fallen to his presence, but by that point it was too late...for them.

His unlikely idea seemed to pay off for the most part; all but two of the hostiles had been directly under the pipe and were quickly electrocuted by the charged water as it poured down on them. The remaining two deftly avoided the deadly spray only to dodge directly into his gunfire. It had been a relatively tidy way of dealing with them, but there was little chance of being able to use the same tactic twice. The Fallen might have seemed panicked at times, but they were clearly intelligent.

The Ghost seemed impressed. "You're definitely smarter than you seem. That actually turned out to be a pretty good plan."

This time, Inaho did feel a subtle sting of annoyance. "Yes, it was a good thing that you didn't give away our position this time," he remarked with a blandness at odds with his retort.

He felt a slight bit of satisfaction as the construct seemed to huff in indignation, but before it could reply, he moved onto a more pressing matter as he reloaded the Khvostov and circumvented the charged water, making his way to the doorway at the other end of the open area. "The ship you mentioned is in the next bay?"

The Ghost likewise seemed to abandon whatever retort it had been forming. "Yes, but the Fallen around it are still there."

He glanced back at the broken water pipe; the spray was – as expected – beginning to taper off. While the Guardian had anticipated that he wouldn't be able to use the same tactic again, it would have been something useful to have as a potential backup. As it was, he remained uncertain how reliable his mysterious new abilities were, and so was reluctant to rely on them too much.

Likewise, he wasn't entirely certain how reliable his artificial companion was. Once they were out of the current life-or-death situation, it might be possible to figure out better ways of coordinating their tasks, but for the present, the Ghost remained a random and mostly unpredictable element. Human beings were unpredictable enough as it was: an artificial intelligence with some computer-like but largely unknown capabilities and apparently human emotions lay well beyond the parameters Inaho was confident in. He had only himself to rely on...though something told him that this was his standard way of doing things.

Putting nearly all his effort into keeping his footfalls as silent as possible, he kept as close to the walls as he could manage, manoeuvring to keep himself out of visual range of the remaining Fallen. That precaution paid off when he had a clear glimpse at what he would soon be up against.

The machine was unlike anything within the confines of his imagination, and he was reasonably certain that such a sight was absent even within his hidden memories. Its body – a massive sphere easily triple his height in circumference – levitated just above the wreckage of what appeared to be a small, largely-intact ship. Violet energy peeled off it in glowing, ethereal waves which illuminated the entire area and cast the Fallen nearby in a cloak of similar energy. At its centre, an empty maw seemed to peer out over its domain like a blind eye, and it issued strange echoing electronic sounds as if it was issuing orders. In its own twisted way, the thing reminded him subtly of his own Ghost.

"So," said Ghost remarked softly, conscientious of its previous blunder. "Remember when I said that if we encounter a Servitor, we run?"

 _That would probably be a Servitor. What a pain._ "Yes."

"You were right: We can't run because it's sitting right on top of the ship we need. Oh, and even better, that's no ordinary Servitor...that's an Ether Runner. They supply Ether to Fallen troops and are better armoured and equipped. In short: we're screwed."

Inaho frowned. There wasn't any other possible way to escape the wasteland. He had no other choice but to destroy the Servitor. "But it's in our way."

Minutes seemed to go by before he was answered with a resigned sigh. "I can't decide whether you're an absolute genius or a complete madman."

* * *

There had only been so much circumventing that Asseylum had been able to do before she was unavoidably faced with more violence-minded Fallen. Even then, she still hesitated.

Though she had no way of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was something in how they reacted and chattered frantically with one another that suggested insanity. It was as if her Ghost had only scratched the metaphorical surface with her declaration that they had become slaves to the Darkness, erasing their volitions and controlling them from within.

 _But then again_ , she considered as she navigated the death-filled, twisting pathways which had once been city streets bustling with life, _would insane beings possess this level of intelligence? Are their minds truly gone?_

If the insect-like aliens truly were beyond help, her actions might have very well been a mercy. Yet, the flaxen-haired Guardian remained uncertain. Something tugged at the corners of her mind, but it retreated quickly when she tried to focus on it. Even as it eluded her, there was the unknown sense that this feeling – she could only describe it as a feeling – was, in a way, wrong. There was devastation around her, and if it was anything to go by, the Fallen had no such qualms about leaving death and destruction in their wake. If they were responsible for it, this naive hesitation was foolishness, and it made her uncharacteristically angry.

Asseylum could not look away. She could not _afford_ to look away.

Red sections lit up on her helmet's LIDAR, and when she turned the corner around what had once been a convenience store, she cast aside her hesitation and opened fire on the screaming Dregs. Some fell with the strange white gas escaping their armour, others simply fell, but they each fell regardless.

"It looks like you found your resolve," her Ghost remarked softly, even kindly. "There's a time and a place for pacifism, but I'm afraid this isn't it."

The Guardian's voice sounded distant to her own ears, resigned and yet…determined. She suspected that, even once they made it to the City, she would have no choice but to return. "I know."

"We're not out the woods yet, so to speak," the AI reminded her. "We should keep moving in case more arrive."

The jade-eyed Warlock nodded as she continued on their way. She could only hope they wouldn't encounter any more hostiles on the way to their destination as she picked her way over rubble and ruined streets. It demanded all the agility she could muster, especially given that she couldn't afford to dawdle. Unfortunately, her hope was dashed the moment the narrow path opened up into the ruins of a spaceport.

As if waiting for their arrival, there was a Fallen inexplicably and considerably larger than those surrounding it, as well as the ones she had previously encountered. Its armour was much more elaborate, with an intricate headpiece adorned with spiky protrusions. The creature possessed the same four arms as the Vandals; the upper arms wielded a massive heavy rifle. Naturally, it stood unmoving in front of the only ship in the area which seemed capable of flight.

"Not good…that's a Baron up ahead," the diminutive machine murmured before her voice – considering the device had a feminine-sounding one – took on a confused note. "But what's a Baron even doing down here? They hardly ever leave their skiffs."

Asseylum blinked, her confusion of a different sort. "Baron? Skiffs?"

As if to answer her question, a sizeable ship loomed overhead, throwing shadows across their path as fresh troops of Fallen dropped to the ground below.

" _That's_ a skiff."

"...Oh."

As minuscule as it was, the Guardian felt some relief as the ship itself moved off once it had deposited a platoon of five onto the ground. However, that left several other obstacles in addition to the looming form of the Baron; the fresh troops bringing the total number up to nine. They were in trouble if they couldn't figure out how to deal with them, and she wasn't confident at all that she was currently capable of fighting off that many. Should she attempt to lure them away, somehow cause them to lose their trail, and backtrack to the airfield?

The solution that presented itself was unorthodox, to say the least.

Asseylum felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end beneath the protective layer of her helmet, as if warning her of a nearing presence. She readied herself to move – perhaps draw off some of the Fallen troops before finding an alternate pathway back to the spaceport – when she could have sworn she heard the strangest sound possible on what had become a battlefield.

As bizarre as the notion was, there was little mistaking the a capella strains of an unfamiliar song in a mezzo-soprano voice, originating from above and behind her somewhere within the husk of a half-destroyed brick building.

 _Midnight lonely whisper cries,_

 _"We're getting a bit short on heroes lately."_

 _Sword snap fright white pale goodbyes in the_

 _desolation of Valhalla._

 _And join with us please - Valkyrie maidens ride_

 _empty-handed on the cold wind to Valhalla._

 _Stars above, is someone actually_ singing? The Guardian wondered. Yet, as strange as it was, it was also mysteriously beneficial to her, successfully drawing the attention of the Fallen. That, and it was her only alert to the other's presence before that same voice enthusiastically called out only moments later.

" _Fire in the hole!_ "

Her Ghost sounded mildly amused. "Good to know that someone has an appreciation for the classics. And we'd better move back..." she warned her, though it wasn't necessary as Asseylum leapt back as far as she could. Moments before an incoming rocket all but evaporated most of the Fallen milling around the Baron.

The blonde couldn't help but look up at the source of the voice; fortunately, the remaining Fallen were as equally distracted, screaming and firing wildly up towards the source. Perched on the caved roof of the brick building was a lone figure in heavy armour, with a tattered calf-length green cape suspended from a thick leather belt. The woman – to judge by how the armour fit the figure as well as the voice – stood hefting an elaborately-wrought rocket launcher.

And the enigmatic woman seemed to have noticed the neophyte Guardian below, if the friendly wave was anything to go by.

"Hey, kiddo!" the woman called out, resting her rocket launcher on her shoulder and planting her free hand on her hip. "Up to making a House of Devils Baron have a very bad day?"

With that, Asseylum's own day took a turn for the decidedly stranger.

* * *

 _All along the watchtower, princes kept the view_

 _While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too._

"Looks like some trouble below."

The Hunter known as Klavdiya Kalugina wolfed down the rest of her instant bread before jamming her helmet back on, as her Ghost killed the music. Once again, she was grateful that she had cut her hair ages ago. While it had never been especially long, it nevertheless would have caught on the armour had she not taken a razor to it; the messy bob look she now sported made things considerably easier. Pulling up the hood of her cloak with her left hand and grabbing her sniper rifle with her right, the Hunter rose to one knee and looked down through the scope. It didn't take long to find what her Ghost was referencing; the giant globes of shrieking black energy were hard to miss even from over two kilometres away.

Something was happening to the Fallen down below, and whatever it was looked especially bad.

Vanguard and the Warlocks at the Tower still had yet to figure out what this phenomenon was, happening sporadically at various places and times. At first glance, it appeared as if the enemies in question were being replaced with these strange duplications. One theory was that these were simply tests for some odd shielding technology, but that didn't seem to add up to their strange behaviour and change in abilities. Some of them even reminded her of the Hive's particular brand of cannon fodder – Thralls – but their jerky movements and rapid teleportation was more like how the mechanical Vex moved. And the latter hadn't come to Earth.

Then there was the fact that the Fallen who had not been transformed by that dark energy were actively fighting those which had been. _What the actual_ fuck _is going on down there?_

"Are there any other Guardians nearby?" the Hunter asked Zaytsev – her Ghost – as she loaded her rifle and began sniping the closest hostile forces. She wasn't picking up anything on her LIDAR, but her Ghost's sensors might be able to locate others while she searched for signs of something more powerful than the oily-black versions of Dregs and Vandals. Something such as a Captain or a Servitor would be manageable, but Traveller help them if something worse showed up. She really wasn't in the mood to deal with an Archon or a Servitor Prime today.

"None that I can detect...no, wait. There's one, and...ohhh, that does _not_ look good."

Diya had to wait a moment before the dome shield around what looked like a Vandal finally let go before she dropped him. They weren't supposed to be able to do that. "Man, that was annoying. What...ah."

Zaytsev had put it mildly. Nearly two kilometres away was a lone Warlock – a freshly-resurrected KinderGuardian from the looks of it – bravely fending off what had probably been a manageable pack of Fallen which were now very _un_ -manageable larger pack of smoky jet-black mockeries of them, including an inexplicably larger Captain. If she didn't know any better, the Hunter would have mistaken it for an Archon or even a Baron.

" _блядь_ ," she swore. She needed to act, _fast_.

Quickly reloading, she began rapidly picking off the surrounding Fallen...or whatever the hell they had become. Each half-second, the air echoed with muffled metallic sounds as each shot landed though each head, raining down death from her perch high above and kilometres away. But instead of leaving behind the bodies of Fallen, each disappeared in a black vortex which seemed to fold into itself before dissipating into nothing. If it really was new shielding technology, would catastrophic failure cause that? If the Fallen were playing around with the bizarre biotechnology of the Hive, why would they be fighting each other?

And there was still the problem of that Captain. He didn't seem to have the Warlock pinned, but the looming black monstrosity was blocking one of the ways to another part of the compound.

" _Run_ , dumbass," she muttered as she whittled away at the orange-tinged shield around the Captain, even if the KinderGuardian had no way to hear her. Unfortunately, the damned thing had doubled the durability of a Captain; she didn't seem to be making much of a dent in it. "Get out of there...you can't beat him."

"They can't hear you," her Ghost chimed in, stating the obvious.

"I _know_ he can't, goddammit," Diya snapped. She was going to run out of ammo for her sniper rifle soon, and she was not going to be able to get down there fast enough to dispatch that bastard with her Arc Blade or Golden Gun before he stole the Light from the new Guardian. It was too far to even just pin him with a well-placed blast from her Void Bow long enough for the newbie to make himself scarce. "Just like that Captain can't hear me telling him to just _die already_."

It didn't help matters that the newbie seemed determined to play the hero, staying nimble on his feet while he tried to cut a swathe through the altered Fallen. Warlocks weren't generally agile, so she would have been impressed if she wasn't cursing at him for taking advantage of her cover and making a run for it the other way.

Then again, was there something else going on that she didn't know about? Did he need to get through to another part of the compound? The Hunter only wished she knew, though as annoyed as she was, she might as well help him out. Diya had a feeling he wasn't going to be diverting from his objective, whatever it was.


	4. Operation 3: Some Girls Are Bigger Than

It was ironic, really: Now that he finally committed to staying alive, Slaine figured his chances of surviving the current situation were slim. Those damned claw-wielding creatures were practically nipping at his heels, trailing him as he moved from cover to cover, while more advanced kinds – apparently named Vandals – held back, attempting to snipe at him from a distance with what seemed to be wire rifles. To make matters worse, the snipers were capable of calling up some kind of impervious shield; he had only discovered this annoying fact after wasting a few rounds of ammunition on the translucent, inky blue-black domes.

As worrisome as the scenario was, he was getting more than a little annoyed. It wasn't as if he could retreat and form some measure of a plan to deal with this mess; the swarm of hostiles had him cut off from escape routes. Hell, at this point he wouldn't completely object to blowing himself up out of frustration if there was some guarantee it would take some of these bastards down with him. Getting agitated wouldn't help, but it wasn't as if he could stop himself.

"Ugh...these sure are...a lot more resilient," he grunted as he ducked behind a fern-covered rock outcropping to reload, the sharp edges digging unpleasantly into his back. Another of the clawed creatures closed the distance; he gave it a good shove away with the flat of his palm. Much to his surprise, the creature instantly disintegrated in some sort of electrical charge as he did. Not that he had the luxury of exploring yet another new aspect of his abilities with these bizarre enemies relentlessly bearing down on him.

The towhead risked a glance out from behind his cover, aiming down the sights of his rifle with the intent to deal with the Vandals. He considered ways to close the distance while somehow managing to avoid claw rakes, giant energy globes, and comparatively simple gunfire, already shifting into position for a desperate run. "I think now might be the time to put those explosives to use, but I'll need to get closer to those snipers."

Before the Ghost could respond, said snipers abruptly and inexplicably began to taper off, one by one imploding in the tell-tale black vortexes. Where there had been five of them, now there seemed to be only one making a nuisance out of itself. It was more than a little worrisome that the others had suddenly disappeared, but the window he'd been suddenly provided was too valuable not to take advantage of. It might have been a trap, but his instincts were all but screaming at him that _now_ was the time to act.

He shifted again to deal with the remaining sniper, only to be interrupted by another wave of rapidly-moving creatures with a singular white orb on the middle of what could have only been their heads closing in on his position. It seemed as good a place as any to fire at. He took aim, but before he could so much as fire off a shot, the creatures similarly imploded on themselves in rapid succession. That could only mean one thing: there was someone else here, and that someone else was purposefully helping him.

"A sniper, probably a Hunter! We're saved!" his Ghost announced in jubilance and relief.

"Don't start celebrating yet. I still don't have a visual on that ship," Slaine retorted before emptying the magazine on the ridiculously tall blue-black creature currently throwing massive orbs of energy at him. He didn't quite move fast enough to avoid the edge of one and was temporarily blinded – not to mention in a considerable amount of pain – for a moment before his health started regenerating. "And we still have this damned thing to worry about! What the hell _is_ it?"

"A Captain, from the looks of it," the diminutive AI replied, ascending just long enough to catch a glimpse before ducking to avoid a shot from one of the remaining snipers. "But at that size, it's closer to an Archon. It shouldn't be that big…"

Suddenly, Slaine was forced to find new cover as the trailer he had been ducking behind was abruptly destroyed.

"... _Or that powerful_!" the Ghost squawked indignantly.

Fortunately, a concrete pillar was more than adequate to shield him, and he made a desperate scramble for it, barely avoiding yet another orb passing by overhead. But though the cover was decent, none of his returning fire appeared to do much damage...if any.

"Would you like to go over there and let him know he shouldn't be that strong?" he replied sardonically.

While his Ghost seemed to be acclimating to his companion's rather dry sense of humour, that didn't stop it from being unamused. How a diminutive machine could affect sulking remained a mystery. "Very funny."

Despite his quip, Slaine understood quite clearly that if he didn't think of something fast, whatever resolve he'd found would be useless. Inexplicably, he could feel the Light pulsing within him, perhaps an indication he would be able to throw another grenade soon, but his throw would have to be precise and perfectly-timed. He doubted just throwing it at the looming monstrosity was going to be of much use, particularly with a nigh-impenetrable orange-tinged shield covering it. Maybe if he could find some way to amplify its power using some scrap parts to cobble together a Tesla coil or something similar...

His eyes fell on a pile of nearby wreckage, likely from whatever ship had crash-landed on the site. It seemed that his luck had changed: he could make out the muted verdigris of copper wiring jutting out from a ruined plastic cable, probably enough for his desperate plan. Slaine had to low crawl through the moist dirt to reach it, but now he needed a distraction long enough to dig out what he needed and jury-rig the coil.

Salvation – or at least the necessary distraction – came in the form of their hidden ally.

Even as he struggled to pull the cables out of the rubble, more shots from whomever it was providing cover fire rapidly took out the clawed creatures closing in. That sealed it; he was definitely being helped. Slaine might have even saluted the mysterious sniper in gratitude if his metaphorical and literal hands weren't already full with his attempt to wrest the wiring from decaying concrete. As it stood, the towhead was forced to glance up periodically to make sure the twitching creatures were not descending on him yet again even as he struggled with the stubborn wiring. Thankfully from the looks of it, his mysterious ally was more than capable of keeping them at bay.

Once he'd freed enough, he hastily wrapped the wiring around his forearms – it seemed as good a place as any to keep it while he continued to frantically work – he moved to fish out whatever else he could salvage for the desperate plan. The thick cloth of his longcoat should be sufficient enough insulation for the moment...at least he hoped so. But if a decent coil could be cobbled together, he might just have a chance at survival by channeling the electrical grenade through it somehow. Not that he was even sure how that would work, but he'd worry about that part when he came to it.

That was not, however, what ended up happening.

Instead of properly staying put, the Captain abruptly vanished from sight. There were only a few seconds of panic and bewilderment before it reappeared, barely a few feet away and firing down at his position with its massive rifle. The neophyte Guardian could only let out an involuntary startled squawk of _"Goddammit!"_ before leaping back as much as he was able, barely avoiding explosive annihilation.

What was strange was that, instead of merely jumping back a several feet, a powerful blast of air from some unseen propulsion system that he currently had no time to examine sent him airborne up to a ridiculous height well above the towering Captain. Though hardly at the same speed as the madly-twitching monstrosities below, the feat itself had been so unexpected that he nearly collided with a balustrade some several stories above ground level, his left arm snapping out at the last second as he realised what had happened, desperately clinging to the rail out of pure instinct.

 _Great. Now what?_ he wondered as he hoisted himself up onto the landing and quickly surveyed the scene from his vantage point. For a split second the air around him crackled with electricity, a sign that he could probably pull off that grenade again. Regardless of his lack of a solid plan, it was not or never.

Time seemed to slow to a terrifying crawl as Slaine leapt off the landing and remained suspended in mid-air, the moment he had been waiting for having arrived with this unexpected narrow window of opportunity. The now-familiar plasma scorched the air and filled it with the scent of ozone, though not in the form of the previous grenade. Though the copper wires loosely wrapped around his forearms were nothing remotely resembling proper coils, they achieved a strange and unexpected effect.

The static electricity somehow channelled through the coils and released in a sudden strike directly below him, forming a shockwave which tore through the Captain as it sought the quickest route to the ground with a nearly deafening crack of thunder. The giant form seemed to disintegrate even as it fell, almost as if it were decomposing at a rapid rate, and Slaine found himself grateful that his helmet had protected his ears from the deluge of noise. He almost wanted to sink to his knees in relief as the adrenaline faded once the danger had passed, but it wasn't as if he was safe just yet.

"Can we celebrate now? Or better yet, find that ship?" his Ghost demanded. "I _really_ don't want to go through all that again."

Slaine was inclined to agree, though he couldn't help but glance towards where that cover fire had come from. There was no doubt in his mind that the sniper had saved his life, but how could he even hope to repay that debt? He had nothing of value, and it was more than obvious the Hunter had little need of his help with much of anything. Yet, he couldn't help but feel an intense need to return the favour somehow, compulsion from a hidden sense of honour he hadn't even known he possessed. Unfortunately, that fulfilment of debt would never be realised as the Hunter was likely long gone by now…

His head jerked up suddenly as he caught the subtle flicker of light from near the tower's summit out of his peripheral vision. He could swear he could make out a tiny human figure from that distance, but it had to have been several kilometres away. Surely that couldn't have been his mysterious saviour, to be able to so precisely snipe his enemies from that distance. Then again, the impossible no longer seemed to be quite so impossible.

His Ghost verbally prodded him out of his musings. "Guardian? Are you alright?"

The Warlock shook himself. "Yeah...I think there's someone up on that tower over there."

Now it was the AI's turn to be startled, its almost constantly-moving components clicking and whirring as it swerved to look in the indicated direction. "All the way over there? How could they have _that_ kind of range?"

"I was wondering the same thing, myself," he admitted. "How could that person even see me from there?"

"Not sure, but if my memory files are correct, even the longest range sniper rifles, like the Candace and Trajan models, don't have that kind of range. He's probably using a Legendary – maybe even Exotic – class weapon. Those are rare and valuable."

"As valuable as his gift at shooting," Slaine replied with appreciation.

Another click answered him. "You can tell him in person, then.. It looks like they're coming over here."

Before Slaine could even ask, the distant figure moved. And he was certain that there was something wrong with his vision, because the Hunter appeared to casually hop off the tower; easily at a height which would have severely injured – if not outright killed – a normal human being. Then again, he had just pulled off a similar stunt not too long ago. Yet, the jump appeared to be different from his own: rather than a blast of air which seemed to leave him suspended in mid-air, the distant Hunter appeared to have an initial blast which allowed him or her more speed and better control over movement.

His Ghost sounded amused at his obvious hesitation. "In case you hadn't noticed, Guardians aren't normal human beings."

The AI wouldn't have been able to see the sarcastic expression his Guardian turned on it, but he would certainly notice the traces of crackling electricity flickering around the fingers of the hand he now lifted up.

"No kidding."

* * *

Whether the Fallen milling about the compound were inattentive due to the presence of their Ether Runner, some yet-to-be-identified ability which allowed him to move around undetected, or simple luck, Inaho managed to climb up a skeletal support far enough to reach the highest catwalk surrounding what had been a cooling tower. He silently admitted that his odds of reaching his current position had been abysmal, so a matter of luck was unlikely, and not simply because he hated to rely on chance. No, it appeared that the Fallen were inattentive in their sense of security, and that was something most definitely beneficial to him.

From his vantage point, the brown-haired Guardian could make out the enemy's scattered positions undisturbed, not to mention it gave him a much better view of the compound's layout. He was thus able to make out at least three Vandals with long-range wire rifles who would easily make nuisances out of themselves should they spot him. Their habit of staggering their shots meant they were at least clever enough to know their weapons' limitation – the brief lag between firing and the bullet's impact – and compensate through their tactics. He found himself wishing for a brief moment that he could obtain one of those wire rifles to study before he turned his attention back to more pressing matters. Simply waiting for one of them to err seemed inefficient, so he would have to figure out a way to force a window of opportunity to methodically take them out. Creating a distraction would most likely do just that.

Lowering himself back down the ladder and retracing his steps, Inaho retreated back into the building he had wound his way through to get a better look at the exposed pipes and wiring. His element of surprise was nearly compromised, however, when a small group of Dreg stragglers appeared from behind an adjacent exit. Dispatching them quickly, he threw a glance over his shoulder in case the noise for the brief firefight had drawn the attention of the Fallen outside. It hadn't, possibly having been too far away and the sounds muted by concrete structures. But since he had a precious few moments to spare, the brunet checked their corpses for any equipment he could use. Aside from a few of what resembled stick grenades and even some ammunition, there was nothing particularly useful.

Standing up, he looked up once more and studied the various pipes threading across the buildings, some made from a different material than the water mains he had made use of earlier. Likely, those were the gas lines he had hoped to find earlier. If gas was still running through them, they could serve as an ideal distraction without blowing himself up in a spectacular fireball right along with his enemies.

Returning to the outside and climbing up onto the catwalk again, Inaho ducked to make himself less visible as he made his way to one of the pipes mounted a foot above the railing. Further examination proved his earlier supposition correct; this was indeed a gas main. If he could keep an ignition source small, it would effectively keep a gas explosion under the necessary control. Rust-coloured eyes fell on the odd grenades in his right hand. They resembled Model 24 _Stielhandgranate_ from an ancient war, but with no discernable payload. Instead, the device appeared to have a small motor encasing what could only have been an electrical core. If they could be hacked so that their charge was kept miniscule, he could set them to go off at points while he closed the distance enough to disable or eliminate the servitor before dealing with the Fallen.

"Hack these so that the induction motor produces only a spark," he commanded, holding out them in his right hand extended out towards the Ghost without looking away from his work as he felt along the underside with his left. The technology was too fine-tuned and alien to attempt it himself, which left him with the task of how to secure them to the mains. The more pressing concern was the a risk of discovery while he worked. He would have to be careful. "Also, some way to activate them on a signal."

For all its obvious artificial nature, the Ghost seemed put-out at his abrupt order. However, it wisely remained silent all the way up to the point when the Warlock moved down to the stop valves and began trying to shut the smaller ones off. "Thank you for finally trusting me with something," the AI remarked sardonically. "Let me guess; you're planning on making a cannon from scratch out of this...assuming the entire place doesn't go up."

"No," Inaho corrected, not looking up from his work. "That would be impractical as well as dangerous."

"Well then...mind filling me in on what you're doing? I can do more than bring a dead body back to life and store things, you know." The Ghost seemed to be filled with pride as he said, "I also have access to a plethora of weapons systems, from old powder-propellant pre-Golden Age weapons to the latest-model pulse rifles. For instance, did you know that there are currently six different models in Hakke's Psi family of pulse rifles?"

As difficult as it was for him to understand just what kinds of other emotions the AI might have been feeling – that is, if it wasn't an elaborate simulation – the exasperation was plain enough. In all likelihood, that understanding came from the nagging suspicion that he was well-accustomed to it for the same habit of his. At least... _was_ it a habit? The brown-haired Guardian didn't feel the need to delve into it, nor waste time explaining his plan; he only needed the Ghost to perform certain tasks when he needed them done. He really didn't want to soothe hurt feelings when the current situation was a struggle for survival.

"Guardian?" the Ghost prompted, sounding for all the world like a person trying to physically poke him to get his attention.

"I require concentration if we're to make it out alive." Silently, he was glad his flat, monotone voice gave nothing of his own exasperation away.

He could swear he heard his Ghost sigh. "Fine, you win. Just so you know, a lecture's on the horizon with _that_ attitude. Not from me, but Commander Zavala's going to rip you a new one no matter how talented you are."

"Rip me a new what?"

"...Nevermind. Just hurry up with whatever it is you're doing," the AI complained as the grenades disappeared from his hand.

Inaho refrained from pointing out that the Ghost's distraction had already delayed him by some necessary seconds, resuming his rapid work. The longer it took, the more chances increased that his presence would be noticed. While perhaps complacent, the Fallen were certainly not completely oblivious, he _would_ be discovered if they dawdled.

Fortunately, the peculiar construct wasted no further time with sarcastic, annoyed comments as they both worked. The reward came when moments later, it announced it had completed its work. "That part's done," it commented with a note of satisfaction.

The Guardian did not so much as reply as accepted the hacked grenade and attached it to the underside of the pipe with half-shredded plastic fibres before gripping the shutoff valve and giving it a hard turn. It was more physical exertion than he had wanted to be subjected to, but it was necessary if he wanted to avoid sending up the entire complex.

Hurrying to the second point along the second main, Inaho repeated the process. Grunting with satisfaction at his handiwork, he descended the ladder to the ground once again as quietly as possible. With his slight stature it shouldn't have been too difficult, but the heavy protective clothing he had been resurrected in likely weighed several extra kilograms. _Troublesome_ , he thought.

Even more troublesome was having to skirt the large open area in order to reach the gas mains rimming the buildings on the other side. For all their seeming obliviousness, the Vandals at least had good eyesight or else equipment which extended their natural range of vision. The Voidwalker suspected the latter; the aliens appeared to have the advantage in darker places, so it stood to reason the bright light of open areas made it more difficult for them to see. He would have to observe them carefully for such weaknesses even as he fought; the information would be valuable later on.

The lack of stairs or a catwalk similar to the one he had used earlier had meant Inaho had to get creative in short jumps among crates and miscellaneous rubble until he managed to reach the pipes. Once the necessary hacked grenades were in place and the appropriate valves shut off, all that remained was making his way up to the top of the rusting remains of a water tower and avoiding being spotted. The climb itself meant more physical exertion, but he had found that, to his surprise, such activity was not as irksome and tiring as he had expected it to be. In fact, it was somewhat disconcerting how effortless it seemed to be. What required more effort was moving into position without alerting the hostile forces below.

After holstering his rifle at his back and hoisting himself up to the top of the tank, the russet-eyed Warlock drew his rifle and flattened himself against the top before looking down the sights of the Howa. "Detonate the first grenade," he ordered his Ghost as he shifted to aim down at the massive spherical machine glowing in smoke-like trails of violet.

At the first explosion of ignited gas, the Fallen panicked and started firing wildly at the distraction as Inaho carefully studied the Ether Runner. Large blasts of violet-hued globular light disintegrated obstacles in front of it, originating somewhere within its core and firing from the empty maw at its centre. Cold dark matter. Axions, not very different from the ones he himself had somehow harnessed. An equal reaction should efficiently destroy it, but there was no way on hand and no time to compare their respective outputs. He would just have to whittle down its defences until the seekers from his grenade – which had the benefit of tracking whatever it was thrown at – could finish the job.

Aiming for the dark "eye" of the massive servitor proved simple enough at first, especially with the Fallen around it constantly distracted by the periodic gas explosions ignited by the remaining three shock grenade placements. That was, until the machine was alerted to where his shots were coming from, swivelling around to begin returning fire. Not only was the Guardian forced to roll out of the way, but the direct line-of-sight that his vantage point gave him in turn provided nothing in the way of cover. Soon enough, that problem was no longer an issue, replaced with a bigger one; the constant barrage had weakened the already disintegrating structure. Metal beneath him groaned as if in protest as the water tower began collapsing.

It was a rather daring move on his part to leap from the falling tower directly up, but Inaho was left with little choice at that point. It was hardly the ideal time to throw an axion bolt at it, but it would deal at least some damage and buy him the necessary time to find cover. Once more, things had not gone exactly as he had planned.

Without knowing precisely why, he found himself drawing his arm back as the same tingling sensation he experienced when he first threw the axion bolt overtook him. Fortunately, it was not enough to distract him as he suddenly thrust the same arm forward, and a subconscious command released the building Light. Yet, it was not the same grenade he had somehow formed previously.

This missile was not the almost lazy arc of the grenade. Instead, the sudden straight blast of violet energy took less than a second to reach its target, blossoming into a large dome when it struck the Ether Runner. Motes of light drifted through it as the Fallen caught within the radius disintegrated immediately.

The servitor, on the other hand, was not instantly evaporated. With a violent series of shudders, its shell began cracking with dozens of glowing fractures before the machine exploded, shrapnel flying a short distance before disintegrating entirely.

"I...can't even be surprised anymore," his Ghost quipped. "As you've probably figured out, that was decidedly _not_ your grenade."

His Guardian, by contrast, was nonplussed. "What was it?"

As poor as he was at discerning reactions, the smug reply from the diminutive machine was nearly impossible to miss. "Remember when I said that you had the potential to wield the Traveller's Light as a weapon?"

"...Yes."

" _That_ was your weapon. Which you should have been able to use yet, but as I said, I don't think I can be surprised at you anymore." It "blinked" at him, its movements somehow conveying being pleased with itself.

A final explosion went off beyond a distant wall, as if to emphasise the Ghost's point. "See, I _knew_ I made the right choice in making you my Guardian!"

* * *

It was bad enough that even more Fallen descended from another skiff – the Baron must have called for backup – but now the air itself crackled with the multiple shots from their wire rifles. The constant fire kept Asseylum pinned down; she could barely survive a single shot, as one of them had sent her reeling painfully before the regenerative armour began healing her. To make matters worse, the Vandals were firing too close together to so much as return fire. The hostile aliens seemed to know their weaponry well enough to time their shots to eliminate any possible window of opportunity for her to do much of anything. If she hoped to so much as return fire, she would need both a lapse in their timing – "human" error – and be able to act quickly enough to take advantage of it.

Her predicament didn't escape the notice of her saviour.

"They just couldn't co-operate like a good little bug-people, could they?" the woman in heavy armour quipped as the elaborate rocket launcher disappeared suddenly, replaced with what appeared to be a shotgun with elegant etching on the barrel. Why this warrior seemed to favour such elaborately-decorated weaponry, the blonde couldn't discern.

"..Or not so little," the mysterious woman added with a shrug, a tilting her head towards the giant Baron not far away from their position. "But I'll tell you what. I'll go distract them, and when you get that opening, keep them off me while I go play with their boss."

It was probably the best plan available, but there was one problem nagging at the new Guardian.

"Wait, how are you going to…" Asseylum began, but the other was already in motion, the dust around her violently kicked up as a blast of air propelled her high into the air from her perch above and toward the Fallen frantically firing at their rapidly approaching opponent. Either the strange elder Guardian knew what she was doing, or else she had an extraordinary amount of luck on her side...and her first action suggested outright insanity.

The elaborate shotgun had disappeared – TransMat most likely, as her Ghost had explained – but it didn't appear that she had replaced it with something else. Instead, her right arm cocked back as she seemed to hover in mid-air long enough for an enthusiastic yell.

" **Titan**... **SMASH**!"

Whether or not the enthusiastic bellow served a purpose, the tall woman rapidly dropped to the ground and punched down with her fist. What should have caused serious injury instead turned into a shockwave which instantly vapourised the unfortunate Fallen below and nearby, and Asseylum couldn't shake the feeling that she was actually _enjoying_ herself. What was even more unbelievable was that while she might have some demon of luck at her side, the cheerful woman most definitely possessed considerable skill.

Even as the electrical field dissipated, the elder Guardian was already in motion, her shotgun reappearing only seconds before blasting a Dreg which had practically launched himself at her backwards several feet. Wheeling with much more grace and speed than her armour suggested she was capable of, she shot down one of their drones – a Shank – into a rain of pieces even while she backhanded another Dreg attempting to close the distance, slashing at her with his long knife. Ether released from the armour of the same Dreg after taking shotgun fire directly to the head, as it did likewise for the Vandal attempting to slash at her with twin swords from behind, only to be stopped when the Guardian twirled her shotgun on its trigger, bracing the barrel and firing back at him over her shoulder. Not even a second later, her free arm snapped out to punch another hard enough for his body to disintegrate...or perhaps that was a particular power of hers not entirely unlike those the flaxen-haired Warlock now wielded.

With as much havoc and damage as she was causing, the heavily-armoured Guardian was pulling the undivided, panicked attention of the Fallen. The Sunsinger finally moved to made ample use of the successful distraction, sniping at the Vandals which had been plaguing her only moments before with short bursts of her auto rifle. Not for long, however; she could feel the warmth of her Light flooding and invigorating her limbs, the same feeling she'd had when she was able to form an explosive grenade from it. But she needed a clear line of sight, not trusting her strange new skills to land a blind throw from her cover. She would have to risk it...which was really only fair, what with her impromptu teammate already out in the middle of the mess shooting and punching at everything, even if she did seem to be enjoying it.

Asseylum wasn't entirely certain she enjoyed that thought, but given that this was a war, it was entirely likely that this was her way of coping. It was either that, or she was mentally unstable. Yet, whatever the reason, she didn't have time to waste on mulling it over, not when she had the window of opportunity she needed.

The jade-eyed Guardian hoisted herself up on top of the outcropping she had been crouching behind, well-aware her position made her an easy target. Hopefully, she would have a clear throw before hunkering down behind her cover. Things didn't go as expected, and not in a way she could have foreseen.

Asseylum could feel the intense heat blossoming from her back even as she called forth a grenade...and then another, and another. Fire rained down on the alien forces, and their attention turned back to her. Staying put was not a good idea.

Leaping down from her position, she ran towards the right, skirting the group while somehow still throwing more grenades. The air shimmered with heat, she could hear her companion's low whistle of appreciation. "Wow, are you _really_ a KinderGuardian? Never seen a freshly-resurrected Sunsinger before. Thanks for the Radiance, by the way!"

Before she could even ask, the tall woman punched the ground again, causing a shockwave that sent the Baron staggering back and dropping the massive rifle, the shield failing under the assault. The neophyte Guardian felt she could pull off one last fiery grenade, pitching it at the towering form with all her strength. It landed, seeming to stick to the Fallen leader before incinerating him. The body crumbled to ash even as it fell, the wind kicking up to carry it away.

Resting the barrel of her shotgun on her shoulder, the armour-clad Guardian strode back to her, and Asseylum had no problems picturing a cocky grin behind the reflective visor. "That was a job well done. Nice work, newbie. Oh, and a belated welcome to the apocalypse post-party. My name's Alisande della Libra. You can just call me Ali. Or Great One. Or 'She Who Saves My Ass Regularly'. Any of them will do."

She could feel herself staring owlishly, trying to take all that in. Her stupefied silence must have lasted more than a few seconds, because Ali added, "That was a joke, by the way. It's okay you're allowed to laugh."

Before she could even respond – she was too baffled to laugh, really – her Ghost apparently decided to comment. "What's a Titan doing out here? I thought your order devoted themselves to protecting the City."

The Titan shrugged. "Some of us take a more...proactive approach. At least after Twilight Gap, anyway. I'd prefer not to be caught with our collective proverbial pants down again."

Her Ghost seemed subdued after that for some reason, but the name was unfamiliar. "Twilight Gap?" Asseylum ventured cautiously.

This time, Asseylum couldn't read Ali's body language as she regarded the younger Guardian. "It's too long a story to get into out here, we're liable to be shot at in the middle of it. Let's head to the City…you have a ship?"

The Ghost seemed almost smug. "Funny you should ask…"

* * *

With the danger passed, the Hunter had the time to stare hard at the newbie she had helped out of his predicament. She had to admit that she had seen a lot of amazing things in her time, and thought she was at the point where very little was capable of surprising her. Such times when she was genuinely surprised were was one of those times.

"Would you look at that? He shouldn't be able to do that." Zaytsev twisted from side to side as he hovered, a suggestion of a head-shake before turning back to her with a humanlike "blink" of his singular eye. " _Should_ he be able to do that?"

Diya shook her head. "The hell if I know," she admitted, only half-paying attention to her Ghost. He was right, though. A Stormcaller _already_ , and able to pull off a Landfall? Not that she really knew much about the supposed rivals of the Hunters, but didn't harnessing electrical currents the way they did require intense study and meditating in old transformers – to become " _ne with the Arc_ ", as Ikora Rey had so poetically put it – or something equally crazy?

Then again, there was plenty of crazy to go around for the ones once called the Risen.

"Looks like our work here is done," she commented, resting the butt of her rifle on the beam she perched on with a deep sigh, her left hand grasping the barrel and her right planted on her hip. This patrol had been a lot more trouble than she had expected. "I should report in..."

The Hunter drew a sharp breath when the distant figure of the fledgeling Warlock looked up, his gaze hidden behind the visor of his helmet. Could he actually see her all the way up on her perch?

Apparently. "Oh, look," Zaytsev chirped dryly. "He noticed us. There's a sharp kid. Should we go down and congratulate him on surviving? With our help, of course."

 _Well, shit_. "Yeah," she reluctantly agreed. She'd hate to see all that hard work go to waste if something else decided to show up after they'd both probably exhausted all their ammo, and the Warlock's Vanguard representative was going to be seriously cheesed off if she left a Stormcaller on his own. "I almost wish it'd been as boring as always."

"I seem to recall that there's an ancient curse: 'May you live in interesting times.'"

Diya lightly slapped her Ghost from behind and returning her rifle to its magnetic hold at her back. "I've been living in interesting times in _both_ lives, so stuff it."

She wasn't nearly as irritated as she made herself out to be, because now came her favourite part of the job.

The Bladedancer lightly jumped off the tower, for all the world simply admiring the view even as the ground came up at her at a dizzying speed, cape flying out behind her like a single wing. But looking down at the Earth while being suspended high above never got old, and she'd be damned if she let any opportunity to indulge herself like this pass by.

It was only at the very last moment that she activated the air propulsion system in her boots, a short gust which cushioned her with a smaller jump before landing nimbly on the wreckage-strewn ground.

"You probably gave that poor KinderGuardian a heart attack with that stunt," Zaytsev quipped.

"...Maybe," she drawled, her catlike grin concealed by her helmet's visor. And if that didn't, how she could even see out of what looked like a thick triangle of metal with three screws holding it down just might. "I'm not worried. He'll see plenty of insanity soon enough."

One such insanity might have been the Sparrow that her Ghost produced from the ether. _TransMat is such a convenient little trick_ , Diya mused as she lithely hopped into the seat of the hoverbike before hitting the pedal accelerator and deftly navigating the wreckage across the now-quiet battlefield. Even with its speed, she had half-expected the KinderGuardian to have been long gone; the passageway that the corrupted Fallen captain had been blocking now open. She was sure now that he was trying to get through there and had gotten in over his head. But what was so important down there that he'd risk a permanent death trying to get to it?

 _Time to find out._

The neophyte Warlock had not moved very far; just inside the receiving bay of the warehouse the late Captain had been looming just outside of. Good; so he had enough sense to move out the the open area. So far, his single idiocy seemed to have been taking on that altered Captain on his own. As annoying as babysitting duty could be, the Bladedancer admitted to herself that she had dealt with worse. She couldn't count how many times she had needed to metaphorically and literally yank a KinderGuardian back by the collar to halt an ill-considered charge forward. By contrast, this one appeared to have some actual tactical skill.

The Sparrow came to an effortless gliding stop alongside the Warlock before Diya killed the engines and dismounted, the hoverbike disappearing when Zaytsev used the TransMat to stow it away. Now that she was up close to get a better look at him, she was surprised to find that while he was taller than she was, he was relatively short by most standards, with a lithe build that would have been far more suited to a Hunter such as herself. Most Warlocks she knew tended towards the gaunt end of physically fit as well as tall, if only to keep the typical Warlock mystique bullshit. She kept such observations to herself, though.

Before she so much as had the chance to ask what had possessed him to think taking on a Captain of that size and power had been a great idea, he rendered the sort of bow she had not seen in hundreds of years. Not only was it unnerving, but it called up memories she tried to forget.

"Thank you for helping...well, rescuing, to be honest," he said before Diya could get a word out. There was also something familiar about his voice, which didn't help her peace of mind, and his gratitude was so profuse that something felt off about it.

As a result, her reply was a little sharper than she had intended. "Just doing my job, though it's not every day that a Guardian is dumb enough to try taking on a Fallen Captain of that size on his own," punctuating her lecture with her left hand planted on her hip. "What in the Traveller's name is so important in here that you'd risk Light and life to get it?"

His body language suggested that he was a little taken aback at her reply, but that he realised she had a point. She almost regretted chewing him out immediately, so to soften the blow she sighed and relaxed her stance a fraction as he explained himself...or rather, his Ghost interjected.

"I detected a salvageable ship down here. Without it, we won't be able to get to the City."

 _Maybe I was a little too hard on the newbie_ , Diya considered. Drawing her hand cannon from its holster on her belt, she left out a small sigh. "To be fair, that's as good a reason as any," she admitted. "Well then, let's get you to that ship."

The Hunter started off for the only unblocked corridor, but nearly tripped on a pothole in reaction to the Warlock's next words.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble," he commented with a genuine note of remorse.

Diya could feel a flush of embarrassment that she hadn't felt for years, coughing slightly to cover up how that had thrown her off and her uncharacteristic clumsiness. "Like I said, it's my job," she replied with a dismissive wave of her free hand as she continued on without a backward glance.

Once again she found herself grateful that she was not dealing with an idiot this time; the Warlock was observant enough to begin following her rather than asking stupid questions about where she was going. With only one way out of the receiving bay, it was rather obvious which way they needed to go, and his Ghost would alert them to the proper direction if she ended up going the wrong way.

But once they entered the darkened corridor, the Hunter was certain there would be little need for direction from the AI. Her finely-honed scouting instincts warned her of the danger ahead even before red flared to life on her helmet's LIDAR. She had seen too much action over too many years than to think they weren't going to get to that ship without a fight.

Checking the ammo on her hand cannon, Diya twirled it with a dramatic flourish, almost taunting the milling enemies ahead. "Time to earn some Glimmer and save humanity."

"Just another day at the office?" Zaytsev replied, clearly in good humour.

"As always, _това́рищ_."

* * *

 **Author's note** : The Smiths – "Some Girls are Bigger than Others"

Perfect for Big Damn Hero Guardians who are louder than bombs.

So...I got a little sidetracked by Rise of Iron. Hopefully this chapter was worth having to wait.

 **Translation notes** : _това́рищ_ \- friend, comrade


	5. Operation 4: Eminence Front

His saviour didn't so much as wait around for Slaine before moving on at a brisk pace, apparently trusting that he would follow. He did so without needless questions, easily catching up to her with longer strides...which was why he nearly collided with her back when she abruptly halted. Considering how petite she was, he almost feared knocking her over, and in the back of his mind he was grateful he was able to stop without losing his balance and devolving into a flailing mess.

On the other hand, it wasn't too long ago that he witnessed her casually stepping off a two-hundred-foot communications tower as if merely bypassing the final step on a rung ladder. Her diminutive build aside, she moved with the air of an experienced warrior, as if her current escort was a mundane duty for her. Slaine was reasonably certain that under different circumstances, the Hunter was more than capable of snapping his neck.

Fortunately, the Warlock managed to sidestep a collision as the veteran Guardian hefted her handgun. A massive thing painted with white markings and what looked to be a playing card spade, it seemed much too large to be a simple pistol. Slaine had a vague, fleeting recollection of hefting a small firearm – aiming it at someone whose face he couldn't quite discern – and the weapon of his memory seemed almost like a child's toy compared to the monstrous firearm in the Hunter's right hand. Yet, in spite of its size, she seemed to wield it effortlessly...at least, if the comfortable flourish was anything to go by.

The Hunter gestured with her free hand, raising her arm with her hand in a fist to silently signal for him to halt. But while his LIDAR only indicated a single stretch of red, indicating hostile presence somewhere ahead of them, the senses of his companion were apparently so fine-tuned that she could discern more precise locations. He found himself wondering in the back of his mind just how long she had possibly been at this for her actions to seem so effortless, from the way she handled her weaponry to her almost nonchalant movements to being able to sense enemy positions even without the aid of her LIDAR. Potentially, it could have been _years_. Already there were countless questions haranguing the neophyte Guardian, none of which he currently had the time to ask.

His companion silently slipped behind a stack of corrugated metal crates, apparently trusting her charge to follow suit. He did so, albeit taking his own refuge behind an adjacent crate, his back flush with the connecting wall, as blocking her own line of sight and fire would probably not end well for either of them. He thought he could make out a fractional turn of her head, possibly out of surprise that he'd had enough tactical sense to recognise it. Not that he could really blame her; if she was even half the veteran he assumed, she had likely seen her fair share of neophytes committing serious tactical blunders that even he'd managed to avoid.

In spite of that momentary lapse, the moment seemed to pass quickly as the Hunter focused once more on the immediate problem in front of them. Even if he unsettled her somehow, her finely-honed instincts returned to the potential battlefield, eyes hidden behind the thick plate of her helmet scanning the scene before them.

The Fallen similarly hidden behind their respective covers were, in all likelihood, positioning themselves into position to deal with the threat they similarly detected through their equivalent technology. He knew better than to ask his rescuer, given that any attempt at talking would have instantly given away their precise location. The fact that their movement hadn't been answered with a cacophony of alien shrieks and a barrage of fire meant they had eluded detection for the moment, and the Warlock was not about to press his luck further. His mind worked furiously for a potential resolution, as futile as it probably was. In all likelihood, the lethally-precise Hunter was already working through a plan even as he was.

A barely audible sigh and a low mutter of an odd indecipherable word cut through the Warlock's musings.

"Too many of these bastards," she whispered. "No way to finesse this one...we'll have to brute-force it. Just stay behind me and hang onto your ass. Last thing you need right now is to be a nightlight where other Guardians can't get to you."

Before Slaine could so much as utter a word, the Hunter blurred into motion. Even before the first panicked shriek of a Dreg pierced the silence, she had already shot three cleanly through their heads with lethal accuracy as she ran. The one sounding the alarm dropped to the ground with a throwing knife planted between the single row of four eyes glittering green in the low light as the one on the opposite side was shot and killed centre-mass. Three shots from a Vandal's rifle seemed to track her movements, but she cleanly evaded them, whirling out of their path before shooting the alien dead.

Yet, even with five hostiles swiftly down, even more were doubtlessly milling beyond the bay door.

" _Сука Блять_ ," the Hunter muttered, holstering her gun. Not that he understood the words, but her exasperation made the meaning clear. "This is taking too goddamn long."

Slaine was almost afraid to ask what she had in mind, but he wasn't waiting on the answer for long. In a move that defied their earlier caution, she leapt up a stack of corrugated metal crates before the slight form seemed to disappear in a flash of blue-hued light before his very eyes. Seconds later, she reappeared directly over the group of seven Fallen – including a Captain standing over a massive pile of rubble – catching them all by complete surprise to judge by the alarmed screams. "All right, assholes," she roared. " **Drop dead!** "

As she shouted her challenge, the Hunter drew the knife sheathed at her back – a small sword, if he was to be honest – before she disappeared again. All he was able to make out were brief flashes of crackling blue lightning, her movements too fast to be seen with the naked eye – it was as if she was literally one with the arcs of electricity coursing over her body. But something was certainly happening when the entire squad of Fallen could only utter strangled cries as they fell to the ground, quite literally obeying her command. All that was left once she reappeared and lithely dropped to the ground once more were scattered Fallen corpses...and those were the ones that hadn't been outright vaporized in a brutal electrostatic discharge.

No sooner had her boots hit the ground that she drew her gun once more with a flourish, though there hardly seemed a need at that point. Still, there was no telling if more Fallen planned on showing up, so relaxing until they were safely away was a bad idea. Given he had no idea if reinforcements were on the way, he was of a mind to hurry to where the abandoned jumpship was.

Not surprisingly, the Hunter was of the same mind. Apparently paying no mind to whatever kind of reaction her actions – whatever she had done, he had no idea what to call it – might have invoked, she resumed her brisk pace toward the hangar. Slaine saw no point in wasting time, silently and hurriedly following suit.

= \|/ =

Thankfully, the Guardians and their Ghosts encountered no further difficulties until they finally reached their destination. Once there, however, they encountered a different sort of problem.

The jumpship was almost completely buried in rubble, as if it had crashed there and the weakened structure had caved in on it. Though he could make out portions of what had once been sleek black metal, Slaine was beginning to have doubts the the aircraft could be even be fished out somehow, much less get airborne, the more he observed it. It would take a miracle, and a cynical part of him insisted that miracles didn't exist for people like him...not that he knew what sort of person he was at the moment. If he had been in a military prison as an inmate, had he been someone who had committed war crimes? That concern had been gnawing at him all this time, though it had taken a metaphorical backseat to his survival instincts once hostiles had started bearing down on him. But now that the immediate dangers had past, the possibility nagged him once more.

"Will it even be able to fly, assuming we can even dig that out?" he asked almost as a distraction.

Quite frankly, he was not holding out a lot of hope for the aircraft. That in turn presented an even bigger problem: how in blazes were they going to escape the area without at least some kind of transportation? He doubted the Hunter would want to just leave him there, but whatever ship she had might not be able to carry passengers.

By contrast, his Ghost seemed confident.

"It will once I'm done with it. Just sit tight," it answered as it scanned the buried ship through the wreckage before it dematerialised to begin its repairs. Not that he had much of a choice, really.

"How?" Slaine asked, the question clear on his face, had it not been covered by his helmet.

It was the Hunter's Ghost that answered. "Molecular manipulation via Light. Can't fix everything, but we should be able to make it airworthy." It turned to look at the rubble and the other Ghost busily using a thin energy beam to push away the excess rocks. "Er, I hope."

After a few minutes, the disembodied voice of Slaine's Ghost's hummed thoughtfully, or at least convincingly simulated a human reaction.

"I've never seen a ship like this, actually. The controls are odd...and the hyperdrive port seems to have been reverse-engineered and retrofitted. I...I don't think this was originally a jumpship."

The Guardian wasn't entirely sure what to make of that, and a mild curiosity arose in spite of what was a more pressing concern. Not that it took him long to return to worrying; if it wasn't a proper jumpship, was it equipped to handle the long trip to the City?

"What was it, then?" Slaine ventured, his voice laced with concern.

"It might have been some kind of transport vehicle, designed to carry an incredibly heavy payload. Given its design, it's pretty incredible it could carry anything at all...the build it closer to that of a fighter. Huh...there are even weapons ports. But other than that, I can't figure it out. No manufacturer plate or military insignia that I can recognise, either."

The Ghost sounded impressed. "Still, it's pretty advanced for something without a dedicated hyperdrive...pre-Golden Age, even. Impressive."

In a more secure setting, he would have liked to have examined the mysterious ship for himself; it did seem rather interesting. However, the problem of just getting it out before more Fallen appeared remained.

"Great, but there's still the problem of it being buried underneath an entire wall," he replied just as he started to form a plan. It would be tricky to pull off if it even worked at all, but it was a start. "You still have those explosives, right?"

His Ghost scoffed.

"Of course I do," it chided, sounding offended. "Things don't just _disappear_ when they're in TransMat."

The Warlock held up his hands in a placating manner. "All right...sorry I doubted you."

While the diminutive machine huffed and resumed its work, the Stormcaller folded his arms as his eyes wandered to the Hunter and her own Ghost. She took up a post and kept vigilant watch at the hangar's only remaining ground-level entrance roughly thirty metres away, which was a decent enough choke-point in the event more Fallen came through it. A solid tactic, but it still left the matter of the gaping hole in the roof.

Though it was advantageous to them in that the buried ship could probably fit through it easily, the disadvantage was that a Fallen ship could just as easily drop more troops through it. Not easy to guard, but at the same time, they would be out of sight of any unpleasant surprises, at least long enough to toss a well-timed and well-placed grenade into the middle of a platoon. It had therefore been something of an unspoken agreement between the two Guardians that she would keep an eye on the skies as their Ghosts worked...just in case.

Slaine only hoped the Hunter wasn't counting on a repeat performance of his odd and entirely unexpected display of power against the strangely-corrupted Captain. He was certain that had been a fluke, as he had no idea how he had managed to pull it off in the first place. The grenades were one thing, but _that_ …

The Warlock shook his head slightly as if to clear away currently useless trains of thought. Hopefully, he would get some answers once they were in a safer location. Either way, it was not something he could rely on, not right now.

How many more troops the Fallen might send to their location after they failed to check in – assuming they maintained a similar procedure to what he could only guess was a past-life knowledge of military protocol – would probably be a better question for the veteran Guardian. Yet, he was reluctant to simply shout his query across the space of the hangar bay. They had probably dispatched whatever Fallen had been present, and so it was logical to assume they would have come running by now if there were more, but it was a chance he would rather not take.

Keeping the ceiling within his peripheral vision, Slaine made his way over to where the Hunter had stationed herself.

"Ah...sorry to be a bother, but in case this ship isn't salvageable, is there any other way to get to the City, or at least out of the area?" he asked in a low voice, partly in case there really were more enemies around the corner and partly so his Ghost wouldn't overhear him voice his lingering doubts.

While he was fairly certain that the Hunter had anticipated his approach,the same was apparently not true of his question. It took her a brief moment before she replied, and he caught the note of caution easily. Why she was wary, however, was something beyond his grasp.

"It…" she seemed to mull over it, "Would be a tight fit, but do-able, I suppose. Better hope your Ghost can get that scrapheap into the sky, at least...it'd be a very cramped ride to the City."

For some reason, the idea of being cramped didn't bother him, but on the other hand, inconveniencing his saviour further didn't sit so well with him.

"About all this...I'm really sorry about it."

Even behind the inexpressive, opaque visor, Slaine thought he could feel her long stare, as if she was trying to see behind his own before she shrugged.

"Yeah...well. Not that _I_ mind, it wouldn't be the biggest pain in the ass I've had to deal with today. But getting a ship now rather than later would be one less hassle for you."

The Ghost hovering beside her clicked softly as its metal angles shifted, tilting back with its "eye" exposed, the shutter over it closing twice in rapid succession. Overall, the movements appeared to be a simulation of a human expression of surprise.

"This is new. Normally, you blow off any newbie the first chance you…"

The AI was cut off as the Bladedancer lifted her arm and delivered a light slap on its top with the knife of her hand.

"Shut it, Zaytsev."

Her Ghost clinked again, sounding petulant.

"You didn't have to hit me so hard, you know...or at all, really."

Slaine didn't have any trouble imagining the Hunter was scowling from behind her helmet.

"And _you_ didn't have to waste time on unimportant shit," she retorted. "The Fallen are going to find out what happened here eventually, and we're gonna want to be long gone before then."

"Yes, and arguing with me isn't going to help things," the Ghost insisted.

"Don't you have something – _anything_ – better to do?"

Before "Zaytsev" could reply, the high-pitched whine of engines flaring to life after centuries of disuse reverberated through the hangar. Turning to look, the Warlock could make out the light from beneath the rubble.

"I told you I'd get it running," Slaine's own Ghost quipped as it re-appeared at his side, sounding equal measures pleased and smug.

"Good work," he praised the diminutive machine honestly. "Any ideas on how to get it out, though?"

The Ghost's satisfied tone shifted to one of chagrin.

"That...is something I haven't figured out yet."

Which meant that figuring out that particular part fell to the neophyte Guardian. Fortunately, a few possibilities sprang to mind, but not without its share of problems. Though the tripmines he'd collected would likely clear the debris pinning the jumpship underneath, the explosion would just as likely bring what was still standing of the hangar down on them. And while death was apparently not something to be as concerned about now, being buried might incapacitate him long enough for more Fallen to appear and kill his Ghost. He doubted that at that point, there would be another miraculous power to revive him a second time.

At least, Slaine figured, he should have the courtesy to warn the Hunter what he had planned.

"I'm going to see if these will work to clear the rubble, but there's still danger of being buried if the roof collapses. So…"

"...So," she picked up where he vaguely trailed off. "If I got this right, you're telling us to clear out. I'm not entirely sure I like this proposition."

Only the fact that he was currently holding fistfuls of tripmines stifled the urge to rub the back of his neck in chagrin.

"It's...well, I know it's rude of me to ask that of you, but it wouldn't be fair after all your help already to put you in that kind of situation."

He could hear the reluctant frown in her voice.

"All right…" she replied slowly before turning her head a few degrees towards the direction of his Ghost still working on his ship. "Hey, Ghost, I'm going to park us right above you guys, so if it looks like this place'll cave before you can get out, TransMat your Guardian up to my ship. Got it?"

The AI only seemed to hesitate briefly before it acquiesced.

"Will do," it agreed before continuing to project a grid-patterned light over the buried ship, what was likely to be final repairs.

A similar grid-patterned light projected from the Hunter's Ghost, only this cone traced over the petite form of the Hunter herself. The process only took a matter of seconds before she and her accompanying Ghost dematerialised from sight.

With his rescuer to safety, Slaine wasted no time. Working quickly, he visually scanned and placed explosives at points where the rubble seemed weakest. It likely would have been much quicker for his Ghost to perform the task, but waiting around until it finished repairing the ancient jumpship would have been a waste of precious time. As it was, he finished just as the tiny AI rematerialised at his side.

"We're all ready to go...er, assuming you're done with however way we're going to get out of here."

"All done," he reassured his Ghost. "Assuming this works. I'd tell you to cross your fingers, but...well."

The small white machine made a slight electronic chirp, which was likely to have been its equivalent of a snort.

"I'd cross them if I had them," it bantered back.

Slaine couldn't help but chuckle softly in spite of the dangers his plan posed. It wasn't as if he had many other options.

"I'm ready when you are."

 _I might have spoken too soon_ , he thought, as multiple explosions set the very walls crashing down on them.

* * *

The fact that there was too much in his new reality that made no sense whatsoever in light of just about everything he understood about physics would have, under different circumstances, rooted him firmly in place while he scoured online sources for what new discoveries had been made. He would have paid special attention to his bizarre new abilities, things which he was assuredly certain should have never been possible. But not only was he absent anything resembling a tool to conduct his research, standing around was liable to get him killed – again, apparently – and then he would never find out. That alone could have kept him moving forward.

It was aggravating. It was annoying. But for the moment, Inaho had little choice other than keep going. Once he reached the City, then he could shut himself up in some library until he had satisfactory answers. Hopefully, such resources were available; the collapse of civilisation as he had known it made him doubt the possibility, but the remnants of that civilisation lingered enough to allay at least some of his concerns.

Some, at any rate. The AI accompanying and guiding him was not quite as helpful as he would have liked.

"To be completely honest," it admitted as it attempted to break the lock of a wide door blocking their way, "This is giving me a little bit of trouble. The engineers of this place were apparently cutting edge for their day."

Inaho was impressed. He had a feeling that didn't happen very often. Still, even the best and brightest of scientists from ages past should have been no match for a machine created by an alien entity hopelessly farther ahead than humankind.

"Why?" he ventured, almost afraid of what answer he would get.

"Actually, I'm not that great at math."

There were few times that the russet-eyed Guardian was aware of his expressions. Societal norms of human expression were, he was certain, foreign and generally uninteresting to him, but at the moment he was fully aware of them and what reactions he could have expected to receive. The disbelieving stare he pinned on the Ghost was one such expression he knew full-well would have given anyone pause.

That is, if there had been any other human beings around and his face had not been hidden behind the visor of his helmet. Then again, the silence and the general direction he was facing might have been enough...even if the Ghost's ridiculous statement hadn't produced a similar shocked reaction from anyone else.

"We're not computers in the conventional sense, if that's what you were thinking," it guessed correctly.

"I'm aware," Inaho answered in a monotone which somehow sounded dry even to his own ears. Computers, as far as he could tell, couldn't resurrect the dead. But that made him wonder just what his Ghost actually was, with its mysterious, physics-defying abilities and poor mathematics skills.

Fortunately, before he was sorely tempted to ask if his Ghost wanted to let him handle calculations he was reasonably certain he could perform, the door mechanisms rumbled to life as the corrugated metal lifted up to reveal another corridor.

"It just takes me a little bit of time to work these old systems," the Ghost chimed once it finished its task, and Inaho almost shrugged. "You won't believe how much trouble I have with Windows 95 systems."

Inaho was about to ask something else, but thought better of it, as it would have taken valuable time away from all his efforts to simply get out of the area and away to the vague "Tower".

Diamond-tread metal steps led upward into an open bay...or what would have been one centuries ago. Now, it was an open pit of rubble, with various angles of ship parts jutting out from the wreckage. The russet-eyed Voidwalker suppressed a sigh, silently pondering the logistics problem of it all. A part of him enjoyed the potential exercise, already calculating what would be necessary to quickly sort through the detritus. But he was nothing if not practical, and the fact of the matter was that he didn't have all day for just a hobby. Fortunately, he need not have worried.

Glancing up, Inaho saw it then: the jumpship somehow suspended from what remained of the roof, tangled up in cables and wires, slowly mouldering cargo nets held its nose in the air, while long-unused power feeds seemed to spike into the hull of the ship like so many mechanical lampreys. There might have once been a landing pad above where it had been situated, now only the rubble below the catwalk he now stood on. Orange paint flecked off a large section of its hull, and exposed wiring along its wings made him sceptical it would be anywhere near flightworthy in the time needed.

He had to admit that, for all its admitted lack of ability in mathematical calculations, his Ghost was his best bet to get the ship airborne quickly. Having an analytical mind was, at the moment, only as useful as what physical tasks he could perform, and Inaho doubted he could get into the finer parts of the ship the same way the Ghost could.

"You mean that," he pointed the jumpship out in case the AI missed it.

"That's the one," it affirmed. "I know it doesn't look like much, but…"

"It will do."

"Right," it drawled. "Just sit tight, I'll have this up and…"

The diminutive machine never had the chance to finish.

Shots ricocheted off the walls as yet another wave of Fallen descended on the bay through the remaining door beyond the mountain of debris.

" _Again_?" the Ghost demanded in exasperation. "Hold them off while I take care of this, would you?"

Not that Inaho would have bothered to answer, already flattening his body on the catwalk and taking measured shots at the fresh wave of enemies. Two heads exploded in the now-familiar gaseous emissions before the Fallen thought to take cover. Apparently, they thought their surprise attack would have been all that was necessary for some reason.

Seconds later, the brunet understood why.

Ducking significantly through the doorway, a much larger Fallen stepped through. This once was markedly different from the Dregs and Vandals in more than just size: the headdress-helmet it sported was much more elaborate, and its rifle seemed much more like a cannon. Towering over what he could only assume were its subordinates, the newcomer fired off a series of high-impact shots at him. Inaho rolled out of the way, only to realise with sudden dread that he had not been the target, but instead the supports above him had been.

He had no time to appreciate the ingenuity of a creature which could have otherwise used brute force. As the ancient metal beneath him groaned in protest, Inaho had no choice but to make a run for it. Not even a foot behind him the structure began to fall in a series of collapses; ones he heard and felt rather than risked a glance backwards. Yet, even as he ran, he continued to fire at the lesser Fallen below, taking out a Vandal and another Dreg before leaping to an adjacent catwalk. It frustrated how slowly he seemed to move in the air even with the propulsion in the boots he had been equipped with. He was an open target in mid-air.

It was pointless to ask his Ghost how much longer it would be before the jumpship was finally ready, but his impatience – irrationally – got the better of him.

"Is it ready yet?"

Strangely, the AI didn't sound exasperated as it had during his previous bouts of impatience.

"Almost got it….there!" it announced triumphantly. "I….oh, is that an Archon?"

"You'll have to explain what an Archon is later," the Warock insisted.

"Oh...yes, of course," the Ghost replied, sounding almost panicked. "Bringing you in now…"

The world around him seemed to blur as Inaho felt his body becoming intangible before he found himself inside an unfamiliar cockpit. It was fortunate indeed that he somehow seemed to know how to pilot the ancient, unfamiliar craft as he left enraged foreign screams behind. A few seconds later, as the craft tore away from the ruined building, it didn't matter.

He didn't think he had been one to appreciate the view of the Earth from the mesosphere, where clouds drifted almost lazily below and the planet blurred into impossible shades of blues and greens. Descriptions, he imagined, probably ran the gamut of poetic, though such flowery words were definitely not in his nature to use. But there, having escaped from the jaws of a second death and on his way to the closest thing to a haven, he had to admit it was the most breathtaking and peaceful sight.

* * *

With the Baron and remaining Fallen defeated, Asseylum and her rescuer were finally able to move forward through the ruined landscape, though the neophyte Warlock's mind was elsewhere.

For all their alien appearance, the Fallen were clearly on the same level as humans with regards to their reactions. Yet, the sad truth was that there was no discernable way Asseylum could reason with them, particularly when they apparently saw their own aggressive reactions as self-preservation...or so she hoped. It might have been that their crazed, almost desperate actions indicated an assumption that she would attack first...and could she really blame them? For all she knew, they were truly alive...as opposed to her, whom they might have seen as an undying abomination. It was only the insistence of her Ghost that she was "humanity's last hope" that spurred her onward. There were people she had to protect.

A blurry image floated through her consciousness of someone with tousled dark hair, accompanied by a feeling of...fondness? No, there was something else other than that, but one that slipped away as she tried to focus on it, an intangible feeling which drove her forward. All she seemed to remember was that the person was someone she needed to protect, however way she could.

For all outward appearances of being little more than a punch-happy brute, the tall armoured woman before her paused to turn back, mirrored visor clearly traced on her impromptu charge. "Are you remembering a little of your previous life?" she asked, all prior levity gone from her voice. The drastic, polar-opposite change was more than slightly disconcerting.

"I...perhaps a little," Asseylum admitted. "How can you tell?"

"You stopped in mid-stride for a moment there," the Titan explained. "It could have been a number of things, but usually when Kinderguardians start to remember pieces of their past lives, it tends to overwhelm them temporarily."

The visor of her helmet hid the puzzled stare she trained on the other woman. "Ah…'Kinderguardian'?"

Ali chuckled without breaking her long yet casual strides, and the blonde struggled to keep up.

"Heh...just a nickname for new Guardians just starting out," she explained. "It's believed that centuries ago, it was the first level of schooling children received."

She had to admit that sounded rather interesting. "Do you know a lot about the past? What happened, or why we're here?"

In reply, the tall woman shrugged, and in contrast to her earlier levity became more serious.

"As much as any other archaeologist or lorekeeper...that is to say, not much. When an entire civilisation ends, records and archives are among the first things to go. And it wasn't just a single nation or empire...human civilisation _itself_ collapsed: every planet, every corner of the system.. We're still digging through what we can at the Ishtar Collective over on Venus, but one, a lot of it is still buried, and two, the place is crawling with Fallen and worse, Vex. One minute you try to sit down and read, and the next an entire cadre of angry murderbots are raining down lasers on you."

Of course, Asseylum had no idea what these 'Vex' were aside from what were probably some malfunctioning robots of some sort.

"You haven't been able to find a way to shut them down?"

Another Ghost materialised suddenly beside the taller woman, chiming in to the conversation

"The Vex...it's more appropriate to think of them as yet more bloodthirsty microbes, just with artificial bodies. Trust me, you'll have to face those teleporting bastards soon enough."

The tall woman shook her head. "Yeah, sure, just tell her that they're radiolarians in a suspension fluid within those mechanized bodies. Nothing takes away the scary like explaining what it is. At least you could've let her find out herself."

The Ghost seemed to move in a sort of shrug. "Where's the fun in that?"

She blinked a few times, startled at the sudden appearance as well as this Ghost's apparently off-colour personality.

"I...thank you?"

Her companion chuckled softly. "Don't mind Socrates, he's a bit on the salty side."

A sea of questions bubbled to the surface of her mind, but Asseylum decided they should wait until later. At least, until another thought occurred to her from Ali's earlier words.

"You mentioned you're an archaeologist...or implied that you are. If civilisation collapsed, how is it possible for such disciplines to still exist?"

Once more, she could practically hear Ali's grin. "That's the beauty of human civilisation; it doesn't _stay_ collapsed. But yeah, I was an archaeologist in my first life, and I wasn't about to let death end my career, especially when it's more needed than ever. And of course, it's still my true passion."

When Asseylum remained silent, the Titan added, "We're soldiers, but that's not all we are. And, destiny-willing, we won't be forever."

She was inclined to ask more, but her own Ghost demanded her attention for a more pressing concern.

"It's here," the AI announced as they came to what appeared to have been a half-destroyed storefront of some kind, flanked on its left by a rubble-strewn lot and the other a half-destroyed warehouse. The golden-haired Guardian thought she could make out a sign in the filmy but miraculously un-broken window with bold but faded letters reading " **Authorised Kestrel Dealer** " and below it smaller letters reading, " **Come see our Spindle lines!** "

"Is it in this building?" she asked her Ghost. There was something rather dark about finding a working ship in an ancient shop long after the proprietors had become dust.

"This is the place, as far as I can tell," the diminutive sentient machine replied. "There's one ship in there I'm sure I can salvage. There isn't much to choose from, I'm afraid."

Asseylum refrained from informing the machine of her surprise there was anything in there that they could use _at all_. As it was, she had no reason to feel guilty for absconding with one of the ships within, but the feeling persisted.

"It almost...it almost feels like robbing a grave," the blonde admitted.

In spite of the Ghosts's lack of human expressions, "Socrates" appeared baffled.

"Why would it?" it asked with a distinctive click. " These people have been dead for nearly a thousand years, and if they were revived as Guardians, they'll have plenty of _other_ problems to deal with. Besides," Socrates added, "it's your chance to be Lara Croft."

"Who?"

"Famous pre-Golden Age archeologist. No idea why she was famous, but her name's on a few things in The Last City Museum." Socrates did that shrugging motion again. "Either way, no one's going to miss those buckets of bolts."

It was logical, of course, but she couldn't shake that feeling. Yet, it was Ali who better allayed her concerns.

"It's not _entirely_ inaccurate," the Striker admitted. "But you could say the same thing for archaeology. We crack open graves of people who died so long ago that, if their names are remembered, it's in epic poetry or oil paintings or what have you. They were once people just like we are, so in a way it feels like we're disturbing their rest. But the thing to remember is that much of human history is about survival, whether that's living long enough to produce a next generation or preserving our heritage. In this sense, by reclaiming what's otherwise just rusting here, we're preserving the future of humanity."

Ali held up one armoured hand, as if to assuage more of Asseylum's worries.

"And I don't mean just by using this to get to the City. Each piece of technology, each fragment of our past we bring back to the last bastion of our race brings us one step closer to putting that heritage back together. Each part pushes us towards where humanity should've been before the Collapse, and each part lets us point more than a few strategic guns at those who are shooting at us. So think of this as more than just your ticket out of here. Think of it as your first contribution as a Guardian, working towards a better future. Does that help?"

It was such an unexpectedly passionate reasoning that it swept away the Sunsinger's worries.

"It did. Thank you," she replied with a smile.

"Happy to help," the Titan chirped back. "Now, if I might be so bold as to suggest we 'get the hell out of Dodge', as the Ancients once said?"

She didn't understand the quip aside from the context, but it was a sentiment she agreed wholeheartedly with.

"Let's go."

= \|/ =

The interior of the shop was so dark that Asseylum's Ghost flickered a cone of light over their path in response, illuminating their way as best it was able to. Socrates had since disappeared back into what ethereal space the strange AIs retreated into, leaving the remaining two Guardians and single Ghost to the task of finding the all-important jumpship.

For her part, the green-eyed Guardian remained somewhat worried.

"What will happen if the ship can't be salvaged? Should we keep looking?"

Her Ghost was the first one to answer with a soft electronic hum before it spoke.

"I don't know if we can avoid all the Fallen out there long enough to find another one."

Fortunately, Ali came to her rescue once more.

"I can take you to the City in a pinch. Fair warning: it'll be a tight squeeze. Just...make yourself as small as possible if we have to do that."

As luck would have it, she need not have worried. Though the darkened remains of the show failed to yield what they were seeking, the adjacent warehouse was much more promising. There were only a few ships which remained intact after a cursory search with the rest crushed under rubble, but a triumphant chirp from her Ghost let her know it had found what they were searching for. Two problems remained, however.

"It's upside down," her Ghost informed her, chagrined.

"...I can see that, How are we going to get it upright?" she wondered, her attention turning to the firmly-closed bay doors of the warehouse. "And how are we going to get it out?"

"It's easy enough to unlock the hatches," the AI replied. "It's just that with the repairs I'll need to do on the ship, it means we'll be here longer than we should be.

In response, Socrates reappeared. "I can take care of that You handle the ship. Soon as you do that, we can blow this spicy ramen stand."

Asseylum could have sworn her own Ghost seemed slightly offended.

"I'll repair the ship," it huffed.

Before Ali's Ghost could retort, Ali gripped it around the edges of its shell.

"No time like the present," the Titan provided, as if to stop her Ghost from wasting time talking back. It twitched in her hand as if severely annoyed, but remained silent. "That hatch will be open by the time you're ready to go."

Ali turned and began making her way to the entrance, releasing her Ghost as she did and leaving Asseylum to watch the other door and her Ghost to get the ship running. After what seemed like an eternity of keeping watch, the diminutive machine reappeared with a satisfied chirp.

"All done," it announced. "Although that leaves the problem of it being on its back. I can pull you in, but after that, I'm afraid it's up to you."

Whether she was truly prepared or not, Asseylum decided that working something out inside the cockpit was preferable to risking a fresh wave of angry Fallen. Her subconscious warned her that this was going to be dangerous. Unfortunately, it was the only way to free the ship that she could discern.

"I'm going to have to power up the engines...maybe that will provide enough thrust to get it outside."

Her Ghost sounded uncertain, likely having come to the same conclusion. "Let's hope this works."

Asseylum nodded before calling out to warn the Striker. "I'm about to start the engines! Please move back!"

The last she saw of Ali was a wave of acknowledgement before she found herself inside the cockpit. It was immediately disorienting, and not entirely because she was now upside-down with blood rapidly rushing to her head; somehow, she understood the controls and knew how to fly this vehicle. Quickly flipping a panel of switches to coax the jumpship to life once more, the Sunsinger could both hear and feel it respond as if it was a beast waking from a long slumber. With one problem out of the way, only one remained...unfortunately, it was the most difficult of the two.

The Warlock eased the throttle forward, encountering the expected resistance. Yet when it reached the point where it should have started moving, the ship shuddered but remained firmly in place. There was likely something weighing it down, or else it was wedged too tightly into its place to coax it out. With a wince, she added more power to the rear thrusters, already beyond what should have been safe...though it was hardly as if the entire endeavour was anything resembling safe.

She could feel the pressure building, but refused to back it off. If it didn't make it out now, it was likely the ship wouldn't be going anywhere permanently. _Just a little more_ , Asseylum thought desperately.

The ship gave one final shudder before it came free of the hold, the lurch forward at an almost sickening speed as it skidded across the ground with an ear-splitting grating noise. She could only hope Ali had gotten out of the way, else the Titan would have been in for a painful – and fatal, if temporary – collision. The ship spun sideways once it cleared the bay door, and the blonde pulled up hard on the right aileron in a desperate attempt to right the aircraft. After what seemed like an eternity, the world seemed to gradually right itself, though not without a great deal of push-and-pull on the opposite ailerons.

The new problem was that the craft was still grounded, grating along the ground. Gritting her teeth, she pulled back hard on the centre stick, feeling the craft jolt again as she attempted to get it airborne. The ship strained hard and barely cleared the remains of an electrical fence as it finally gained altitude, and Asseylum let out the breath she hadn't realised she had been holding.

"Thank...the...Traveller," her Ghost murmured unsteadily. "For a minute there, I wasn't sure we were going to make it."

In all honesty, the Sunsinger hadn't been so certain of that herself. But instead of voicing something that wasn't especially useful, she asked a question of a more immediate concern.

"Do you know the way to the City?"

This time, the AI sounded confident. "Like the back of my vocalizing processors."

* * *

Diya hadn't wasted time on the ground after she got an inkling if the newbie's plan. Whether the hangar collapsed or was sent up in a fiery explosion – there might have been some remaining live gas pipes around the area, for all she knew – it wouldn't help any of them if she was caught up in at as well. _Someone_ would have to keep the Fallen off their asses while the newbie's Ghost revived him in the event he couldn't get out in time.

Yet as crazy as it obviously was, the plan might just work. Guardians in general excelled at pulling off insane stunts, but at least this guy was using his head rather than the usual this-seems-dangerous-but-let's-try-it-anyway-and-see-what-happens shenanigans. Once they fully realised they were somewhat immortal, Kinderguardians tended towards recklessness.

"Let's hope for his sake this works," she quipped to her Ghost.

"True," Zaytsev replied back. "It'd be a shame if his creative plan turns out to be a bust...that would be discouraging."

As it turned out, the both of them were on the proverbial edge of their seats when the hangar lit up. Timing simultaneous explosions was tricky even for Ghosts, so when all of the Warlock's explosives went all at once, it seemed as if the entire subsection of the complex went up, showering the area in a rain of concrete, rebar, and metal.

"Shit!" Diya exclaimed involuntarily. "Get his ass out…"

"Hold on," Zaytsev interrupted. "What's that?"

Through a rain of debris at the remains of the hangar collapsed, Diya could make out the sleek black jumpship as it barely cleared it as the rubble threatened to bury it all over again, gunning out at escape velocity. And it seemed that whatever dictated those parts of her fate that she had no control over had a twisted sense of humour, because she recognised what type of aircraft it was.

The newbie was piloting a Sky Carrier.

"Oh, this guy is _good_ ," her Ghost murmured appreciatively to her as he seemed to effortlessly clear half of a satellite receiver spire with an elegant roll. "You have to admit it's a refreshing change of pace to find a Kinderguardian who actually seems to know what he's doing."

Diya was inclined to agree. The Warlock might have been a fresh resurrection, but the way he had neither blown her off and charged ahead nor blindly followed her instructions when they had clawed their way through Fallen troops had suggested a rare tactical mindset. Had he been a soldier in his previous life, one who – in spite of amnesia – remembered instinctively a life of thorough and meticulous training and practise?

Her expression darkened a fraction; if he had been a soldier and was capable of acclimating quickly to that particular type of ancient aircraft, that meant he had probably been Versian.

In fact, she was more than certain of it; not even a minute had passed before the Sky Carrier manoeuvred around the ruins of an observation tower with the kind of grace that should have only been possible with something like her Awoken-crafted Hildian Seeker. But milking that kind of grace from a rustbucket which probably hadn't been flown since the Collapse? Moreover, what could have a former Versian soldier been doing on Earth? While it was true that the Vers Empire had fallen halfway through the Collapse, eventual recovered memories might likewise awaken old, pointless grudges.

Still, this Kinderguardian was certainly full of mysteries and surprises. Even among Versians, Diya had only seen that kind of effortless skill and finesse _once_ , from a part of her past she would much rather have forgotten. _As if I needed any more reminders_ , she thought sourly.

Removing her helmet with a relieved sigh, the Bladedancer closed her eyes after she sunk wearily but gratefully back into the pilot's seat. As much as she wished she could simply leave the newbie to his own devices at the Tower and make off for a good distraction of some ruin-exploring on Venus, the Vanguard would need her report.

This 'duty' business was really overrated.

"Music?" her Ghost offered, familiar enough with her moods to understand what she needed.

" _Пожалуйста_ ," she accepted without opening her eyes. The diminutive AI wouldn't need any other affirmation of her gratitude.

 _The sun shines_

 _And people forget_

 _The spray flies as the speedboat glides_

 _And people forget_

 _Forget they're hiding_

She liked this song, but she had to admit it always made her uncomfortable, hitting far too close to home. As tough as she acted, as many followers of the Darkness as she brought down, it wasn't the reality.

 _Behind an eminence front_

 _Eminence front - It's a put on._

If she was as completely objective about herself as she tried to be, she had to admit she was a pretty big fake.

On second thought, it wasn't _entirely_ true. She could never seem to forget, whether that was her past or the fact that she was hiding behind a mask of her own making. It was a rather impressive put-on, if she did say so herself. And as long as she continuously kept other people at a proverbial arm's length and minded her façade, it worked quite well.

 _Come on join the party_

 _Dress to kill_

 _Dress yourself to kill._

"I always do," she murmured as she opened her eyes and keyed in coordinates to the City before celestial bodies blurred into the characteristic lines of hyperspace. When all was said and done, the Hunter still had a job to finish.

* * *

 **Author's note** : I AM SORRY FOR THE WAIT. =_= It seems I didn't beat the livestream gameplay premiere, but I still beat the beta release, so I consider that a win. But the hype is still with me, so hopefully there won't be as long of a wait for the next chapter. That and RL is no longer eating me alive.

Also, no one knew that Lara Croft was fictional. She probably has a display featuring great explorers of the past, alongside Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. and Nathan Drake.

Playlist:

Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, Martin O Donnell & Paul McCartney - The Journey Home

Kobayashi Mika - BREATH/LESS

Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, Martin O Donnell & Paul McCartney - The Warmind

The Who - Eminence Front

Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, Martin O Donnell & Paul McCartney - Passage


	6. Ghost Fragment: Aldnoah 1

=================== _NEW GRIMOIRE CARD ACQUIRED_ ===================

 _Ghost Fragment: Aldnoah 1_

"Since you're early visiting me, that means there's some major news you just _have_ to share with me _right now_."

"The ancient aliens who created Aldnoah might have been discovered. Researchers compared the ruins on Venus to the Hypergate on the Moon and found them to be nearly identical."

"...OK, that _is_ a big find. What did they uncover?"

"Here, look at this."

"Seriously? That looks like vaguely like Solis. They really think something like kataphrackts built the Hypergates?"

"No. They appear to have been a race of intelligent cybernetic beings, though it is possible that some kataphrackts were based on their physiology. More importantly, the reason why researchers believe Aldnoah has failed so far in efforts to replicate it is because it was simply an attempt by these 'Vex' to simulate the Traveller's abilities."

"So, what they're basically saying is that Aldnoah has always been just a cheap knock-off?"

"Not as you put it. It was simply – if one could say 'simply' about something so complex – their attempt to understand how it works, which was also why..."

"...Why the power depreciated when it was granted to someone by a member of the royal family."

"Yes. It seemed that Dr. Vers Rayvers inadvertently became a hub for their network, and only biological descendants were recognised by the network as 'slave' hubs."

"Charming. I imagine this means Aldnoah research has been abandoned. Why study the imitation when you have the real thing almost literally hovering over your head?"

"...In so many words."

"But you know what this means, right? The royal family doesn't have to be solely responsible for maintaining life on a dead world, not with the Traveller terraforming it and making Aldnoah obsolete. Mars hasn't needed provisions from Earth for over a year, maybe they could finally..."

"The political situation is still unstable. The people still look to the Empress for leadership, if no longer the metaphorical lifeblood of the planet."

"...Oh. That's a shame. I was hoping Mars would start to become more democratic by now. But I suppose some things never change."

* * *

 ** **Author's note**** **:** Just a little something for y'all in-between chapters, a personal thanks for making it through the 'tutorial', and because the open beta rolls around for all us console peasants next week-end so I will obviously not be getting any writing done then. My personal goal will be to have the next chapter out before the game goes live in September. WE SHALL SEE.


	7. Operation 5:Seagull

**The Tower  
The Last City**

Inaho had held no expectations of the Last City, which turned out to be a positive. If he had, the small city impossibly tucked away in a remote valley would have defied each of them.

Upon approach, the impossibly-large, white spherical object looming over the valley dominated the landscape. It would have commanded the attention of anyone, but the thoughts running through his head were how such an existence was even _possible_ within the realm of physics. It seemed he couldn't go very far at all without finding one impossibility after another. He couldn't let it go, either; one of the first things he had committed himself to doing was to find the nearest library or archive and spend however long it took to catch up on this new reality. It might take him a good long while but understanding the world and his new reality was one of the most important objectives he had.

What he _did_ notice as the jumpship continued on its automatic trajectory were the walls surrounding the mish-mash of buildings nestled below white-capped mountain peaks, with towers situated at specific junctures. It was a tried-and-true method of defence, but what was peculiar was that the aircraft pulled up to one of these towers before he found himself transported to a courtyard at its summit. He surmised that this could only be "the Tower" his Ghost had mentioned...but why was it not in a more central part of the city?

As more ships came in, Inaho's gaze was drawn to and lingered on a young woman who had been ported in from one such ship, dressed in heavy armour with a semicircular knee-length cape descending from her belt, depicting a stylised golden labrys on a white and magenta field. A young-looking man in lighter armour, a red elaborate longcoat, and a glowing band on his upper left arm depicting a double-headed eagle in shifting colours emerged from a corridor on the right side of the courtyard, greeting her with a smile. Something seemed elusively familiar about the pair – strangely, the woman seemed much more familiar than the man – yet there was seemingly nothing which stood out about, neither the woman with her feathery, short dark hair and sharp violet eyes nor the man with his mop of golden-blond hair parted at the side which partially hung into soft blue eyes.

Though not deliberately, Inaho managed to overhear their conversation as they idled at the railing overlooking the city below. Admittedly, little of it made any sense to him.

"So, how was Europa?" asked the man whom, based on his style of dress, Inaho guessed to be a fellow Warlock.

The dark-haired woman wrinkled her nose in what appeared to be distaste.

" _Ugh_. I'll let you know after I've had a long shower."

Her companion shivered for some reason, perhaps to express sympathy.

"How can you even _think_ about water after that?"

"Easy. I'll need at least a half-hour at scalding to properly de-thaw," she answered, holding up her hands and flexing her digits in an exaggerated manner. "I still can't feel my fingers."

Her companion smiled – again in what was likely sympathy – before he changed the subject.

"Up to a round in the Crucible later?"

The violet-eyed Guardian groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Not if we're matched up with those goddamned Orbital Knights again. Those asshats _always_ play Rumble even in the objectives! They'll completely lose a match because they're too busy competing with each other to rack up the most kills. They'd shoot _each other_ if they could!"

She tossed up her hands in frustration, a scowl marring her youthful face. "As if kills even _matter_ in Rift!"

"What's with them, anyway?" the blond openly wondered. "Are they even a clan if they don't at least co-operate?"

Though their conversation continued to make only a modicum of sense to him with its sea of unfamiliar terms and names, the name of the 'clan' she mentioned pinged something within his subconscious. Inaho mulled over it as he continued to halfway listen in on their chat.

In the meanwhile, the woman in heavy armour – the word _Titan_ somehow sprang to mind – shook her head.

"I have no clue. Apparently, some of them have some vague-ish memories of their past lives and are 'reclaiming their former glory' or some other bullshit like that. That they're the only ones who believe each other is probably why they're even a clan at all. Well, and maybe the mutual glory-hounding."

Their chatter gradually faded out of Inaho's hearing range as they migrated past the courtyard and up two short flights of stairs to an inner courtyard, disappearing from view into a passageway to the left.

After a moment of staring, his Ghost materialised beside him. Perhaps it had been giving him some time to adjust, but it wasn't an important enough question for him to bother asking.

"The Hall of Guardians is just down those stairs," it noted to him, apparently indicating a wide descending passageway approximately fifty feet in front of him. "The Vanguard representatives are usually down there. We should probably report in before you start exploring the place."

The advice had merit, the brunet Guardian had to admit.

"All right."

Yet, just as he was about to leave, another ship pulled into view behind him. The whine of the engines sounded different somehow, high-pitched and powerful. Out of curiosity, he turned to observe the approaching aircraft, his attention focused on it as it hovered just beyond the railing of the courtyard.

It was different in just about every way from his own, and even the jumpship of the heavily-armoured woman from earlier. Sleek and black, with long wings which bent backwards midway as it pitched and rolled along the wind currents, it dominated his view until a figure materialised below and in front of it.

Inaho remained where he was, curious about the pilot of such an odd-looking craft. As it turned out, said pilot was just as unusual. Blue-green eyes were wide as they took in their surroundings, and an expression of what was likely to have been awe etched on a youthful face. The high winds around them stirred unruly, short platinum-blond hair and a longcoat similar to the one Inaho wore. Similarly, there was a simple band with a geometric pattern of glowing blue on his upper left arm not entirely unlike Inaho's, which might have served some specific purpose that he had yet to discern.

But for all that his eyes took in, only one word seemed to come to mind.

* * *

The Last City nearly crippled Slaine with sensory overload. While what his Ghost had identified as the mysterious 'Traveller' – the otherworldly being supposedly responsible for his new life – commanded attention over the landscape, the city below it was just as fascinating. With so many different styles of architecture crammed into a relatively small area, it was proof that mankind, with all its varying cultures, had been forced to all but retreat into the walled-off valley. In some ways, it was a depressing thought that people had been reduced to this...but at the same time, they had been forced to set aside their myriad differences to live in co-operation. It was a bright spot of hope, at any rate.

The Tower itself mystified him in turn. At a slight angle with a summit shaped almost like the aft of a large aircraft, it hardly seemed like a military post to him...at least at first glance. Reviving in the middle of a war zone had led the blond to believe there was some urgency to the unknown conflict he had found himself drawn into, but the atmosphere of the Tower was strangely unhurried, even relaxed. As evidence of that casual atmosphere, his eye was drawn to a worn rectangular sticker slapped haphazardly on the side of a smooth grey column adorned with white circular geometric designs on an azure field. Cream letters on a faded purple background cheekily declared, " _We don't believe in miracles here...we_ _ **rely**_ _on them_ **.** "

Even as he tried to regain his bearings – shielding his eyes from the intense sunlight above – a soft voice drew him out of his musings.

"Bat."

Slaine turned to regard the person to his left who had spoken. Perhaps a few centimetres shorter than him, the other Guardian – he could only assume the similarly-dressed boy was one, as well – regarded him with an oddly-impassive expression. As the altitude winds blew through the courtyard, causing a small dust devil in their wake, they ruffled messy waves of dark brown hair which only seemed to compliment an almost child-like curiosity.

The tow-head blinked in confusion.

"Excuse me?"

"It looks like a bat," the other replied as if that explained everything, rust-coloured eyes flicking up to the ship behind them.

The problem for Slaine was that to him, it looked _nothing_ like a bat.

" _How_?"

"The wings are shaped like a bat's."

"I'm...still not seeing it," the Stormcaller answered slowly, frowning and casting a jaundiced eye on his strange ship as it was guided away, probably to a hangar somewhere in another part of the Tower. His Ghost remained dematerialised and was decidedly _not_ panicking, so it was likely not something to worry over. Still, would the technicians there even know how to maintain a ship so ancient?

The strange Guardian next to him effortlessly derailed his train of thought.

"Is something wrong with your eyes?"

For all the rudeness such a question implied, the blank stare of the other seemed to indicate honest curiosity. There was certainly something off about this other Guardian.

"No, I mean…" he started before a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Wait...did you think I was talking about not being able to see my ship?"

A puzzled blink answered him first.

"Yes. Were you not able to see your ship?"

Slaine could feel himself blinking with similar bemusement, hesitating and rubbing the back of his neck before answering as he considered his answer. Not out of fear of offending the other Guardian but instead phrasing his words in a way the other might be able to understand.

At least, he hoped so. The brunet didn't appear to lack intelligence, but his reaction was definitely not a normal one.

"Yes, I could see it...but what I _can't_ see – that is, what I can't understand – is how it resembles a bat. It looks more like a gull...though even that's still a big stretch."

"Do you like birds?"

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, but Slaine was quickly learning this other Guardian had his own pace and trains of thought. Nevertheless, it still threw him off a bit.

"Erm...well...yes? But what I mean is that it doesn't look like a bat to me."

"Should I call you 'Gull', then?"

Was this his way of trying to be friendly? Slaine had no frame of reference to make an educated guess, but there couldn't be any harm in assuming that's what the brunet was trying to do. After all, if he was a fellow "Kinderguardian" likewise out of his depth, then he might be trying in his own awkward way to find someone to socialise with...even if the tow-head wasn't completely sure the brunet would care about such things if he wasn't entirely on his own.

"Ah...giving someone a nickname when you don't know them very well is..."

He was finding it tricky to explain things that most people took for granted, but in a strange way, it was a rather pleasant mental challenge that forced him to approach things in a different way.

"Well, it makes most people uncomfortable. You're better off just using my name."

Pausing to offer his hand, Slaine continued.

"I'm Slaine Troyard. It's nice to meet you."

At first, the russet-eyes Guardian seemed to stare at the offered hand blankly, as if he uncertain of what he was supposed to do. Slowly – almost experimentally – he raised his own and cautiously took the one Slaine offered, though his impassive expression persisted. He didn't seem to be acting in a deliberately rude manner, however, so Slaine brushed it off. He doubted the other boy meant any offence.

"Kaizuka Inaho. It's...also nice to meet you."

Slaine offered his best reassuring smile, though it didn't appear to have a noticeable effect on the other boy, who continued to regard him with a lack of any discernible expression. Perhaps it did, but he had no way of knowing at the moment.

"I guess you're new here, too?"

Kaizuka – or should it be Inaho? – nodded but remained silent.

The blond took that to mean he might have been feeling overwhelmed as much as Slaine himself was. Certainly, the brunet appeared to be unflappable, but that might not be what he was actually feeling. Slaine could only hope he was being properly empathetic.

"It seems I have to go down and talk to someone in this 'Vanguard', which I guess so do you? That is, if your Ghost mentioned it?"

He was answered with another nod.

"Then, maybe we could go together?" Slaine suggested with another smile he hoped was reassuring.

"That would be a logical thing to do," the other agreed.

 _An odd way of phrasing it_ , the blond supposed as he started towards the stairwell, but it was encouraging nevertheless. And he did have to admit that company, even peculiar company, made things a little less lonely. Hopefully, the other boy was of a similar frame of mind and wasn't going to become too bored with his presence. Slaine had a feeling that they were going to be seeing a lot of each other in the near future.

Yet before he had even taken a few steps, the roar of a jumpship thundered overhead, and Slaine couldn't help but look up toward the source. His new companion likewise followed with his gaze to observe the strange aircraft, and Slaine wondered what it might have looked like to him with its two prong-like appendages in lieu of standard wings and a third at the bottom of its elongated hull, glowing blue as if there was water beneath it casting reflections up on it. Despite its alien appearance, blond recognised it immediately.

It was the jumpship of the Hunter who had rescued him.

After the City had come into view, his saviour had made some offhand remark about needing to stop off somewhere first and changed course while his own jumpship continued on to the Tower. Slaine had to admit he'd been a little disappointed, having hoped for the opportunity to thank her properly for saving him in a situation he wasn't certain he would have survived otherwise. The brunet next to him might have been puzzled by his contradictory behaviour, but Slaine held back long enough to wait for the pilot to transmat down.

"And what does _that_ ship look like?" he asked his companion.

"A squid."

"Just don't call that pilot 'Squid', all right?" the tow-head managed to reply after struggling to stifle a laugh, thankfully just before the pilot was ported down to the courtyard.

With the sun at her back, he had a hard time making out her features even as it lit her shoulder-length rose-coloured hair with a golden glow. The wind continued to whip around them, and she impatiently attempted to bring her hair under control with her left hand, fruitless as the attempt was. Without her helmet and hood, the Hunter seemed even more petite, her features possessing a deceptive delicacy to them. She would have even appeared almost fragile...if he hadn't seen her destroy an entire platoon of Fallen almost single-handedly.

Slaine figured this was his best chance to properly express his gratitude for saving his life.

"Excuse me, miss. I'm the new Guardian you saved a little while ago," he ventured with a shy smile, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just wanted to thank you again for rescuing me."

He hadn't known what to expect – a grunt of acknowledgement and a dismissive wave towards her actions, perhaps – but what actually happened fell entirely outside of anything he could have predicted.

The first thing he noticed now that he could see her up close was the colour of her eyes; a clear blue matching the cloudless skies behind them. The second was that those eyes were widened in shock. And had she paled at the sight of him? It was a strange reaction to say the least.

Before he could ask, however, the Hunter abruptly pulled her hood up over her head, obscuring her face.

" _Пожалуйста,_ " she muttered before quickly turning on her heel and beating a hasty exit towards the stairway leading down to Vanguard Hall.

The tow-head was left staring in her wake with an openly confused expression, which his Ghost apparently misinterpreted.

"She said 'You're Welcome'...well, in context, that's what she meant," the AI chimed in helpfully.

To be fair, he hadn't understood what she had said; the Ghost's quip was genuinely helpful. Still, the source of his confusion hadn't been only a matter of linguistic differences. The Hunter had been gruff before, but just then she seemed strangely stand-offish.

A low whistle to his left jolted him out of his musings, and both he and Inaho turned their heads towards the sound. Leaning casually against one of the grey columns with folded arms was what could only have been a type of android or cyborg, with a body simulating a male form and dressed in similar light armour to what his saviour had donned with a similar tattered black hooded cloak. Glowing green disks gazed at the two new Guardians where eyes would have been on a human being, and for all the world it seemed as if the metal plates painted with dark green stripes making up his face were arranged in a human expression of a smirk.

"Wow, the great Klavdiya Kalugina didn't just call you something rude and stomp off. Either she's in a _fantastic_ mood today or you left her with a rare favourable impression. What'dya do, single-handedly defeat a Hive Prince on the Moon?"

Though he really wanted to ask what in the world a 'Hive Prince' was – a sidelong glance to his companion suggested Inaho was about to – Slaine decided he should clarify about what actually happened.

"No, I just...she saved me from a captain of one of the...they're called Fallen, I think?" Slaine was thrown off enough to start flailing slightly. His eyes flicked to Inaho momentarily, and the inexpressive young man seemed curious. At least, Slaine thought he might have been.

"It turned black all of a sudden and I wouldn't have survived if she hadn't come to help."

The older Guardian appeared to frown, or his faceplates appeared to suggest the expression.

"That's been happening a lot lately. Some of these bad guys will just be sittin' there, just mindin' their own and peacefully plottin' how to kill us, when _**BOOM**_!" The android gestured with his hands to simulate an explosion before he continued. "Some weird black holes just appear out of nowhere and suddenly those same bad guys are all black and twitchy and creepy and a helluva lot stronger. I never had to deal with this crap when I was a newbie, so y'all be extra-careful, okay?"

Slaine offered him what he hoped was a grateful smile. The experience was a little too fresh in his mind for the memory not to unnerve him.

"Thanks, we'll keep that in mind."

The veteran Guardian seemed to come to a realisation.

"Oh yeah, probably should have introduced myself. I'm Markus-4. My Ghost found me about...fifty years ago? Gettin' hard to remember nowadays. And since you might not know, considerin' the funny looks I get sometimes, I'm what you'd call an Exo. I guess you could call us cyborgs, seein's how a lot of us used to be human and even the ones that weren't have some organic parts. That's part of how we're different from those Frames over yonder," he added, waving to the modular robot leisurely sweeping the outskirts of the quad.

The blond's eyes flicked to Inaho again, and he could tell already that he was interested enough that he was likely about to ask an intrusive question without realising what social norms he was breaking. Fortunately, Slaine was fast enough to step in before that happened.

"I'm Slaine Troyard. Thank you for the insight, it was very helpful."

He hoped Inaho would understand enough to follow his lead, and sure enough the rather odd Guardian was observant enough to pick up on his cue.

"Kaizuka Inaho." He paused as if unsure of what to say next before adding, "Thank you."

Luckily, the Exo didn't appear to be offended.

"Sure thing. Gimme a holler if you need some help with a bounty. Most of us oldbies are more than happy to show y'all the ropes, seein's how we need all the Guardians the Traveller can rez."

Slaine had to admit that he was nearly as baffled as Inaho was by the older Guardian's speech, but it was probably best to save those questions for the Vanguard.

"We appreciate the offer," he replied, deciding it was probably a good idea to speak for the other Kinderguardian in this situation. "We have to go report to Vanguard, so we'll probably talk to you later."

"Sure thing. See you 'round," Markus replied affably before turning and offering a backwards wave as he departed.

Meanwhile, Slaine decided he'd best assuage his impromptu companion as they made their way to the hall, lest they be side-tracked again.

"I'm sorry for taking charge like that, but..."

It was difficult to tell whether Inaho was offended or not from his expression alone – or lack thereof. At least if his response was anything to go by, he thankfully wasn't.

"You were correct; any questions would have delayed us further."

 _Ah well_ , Slaine thought as they resumed their objective. _He's partially right...I'll just have to explain everything later._

* * *

As tragic as the circumstances were which had led to its construction, Asseylum found the City to be incredible. From the railing surrounding the Tower courtyard, she could observe the bustling streets below, vibrant with life. Each avenue was lined with various shops and makeshift stalls on either side, bedecked with colourful awnings, embroidered and printed wall hangings, and pendant lamps casting patterns of multicoloured light. Strings of triangular flags draped across alleyways where bright tiles of mosaics decorated the portals separating each area. Various wares seem to spill over into adjacent stalls and corners where the occasional old-fashioned neon sign declared varied dining establishments. Commerce, it seemed, was firmly etched into humanity's subconscious as people fulfilled each other's needs through trade.

And finally, while the Traveller might have loomed overhead, she could still easily behold the endless blue skies framing it. For some unknown reason, she had a difficult time tearing her eyes away from it and the occasional flocks of birds traversing it. The skies held her gaze much longer than even the welcoming streets of the City, and a strange nostalgia accompanied the sight.

"Quite the spectacle, isn't it?" a familiar voice quipped at her back.

The Warlock turned towards the Titan who had led her there, only to be taken aback at the tall woman's appearance. Glowing irises of neon blue gazed back at her from behind bangs of deep blue hair, most of which was pulled back into a high ponytail with only a few strands escaping to frame a finely-sculpted face with a powder blue complexion. Lips of subtle violet seemed to be drawn into an amused smile.

Asseylum blinked at the woman's alien appearance before smiling with a bit of embarrassment.

"Oh...yes. I wasn't expecting the City to be so...alive, I suppose is an appropriate word for it."

Ali grinned in response.

"As I said before, humankind is nothing if not creatures of habit." Her rescuer paused for a moment, her smile widening to a grin as she shifted her weight and planted her right hand on her hip. "And I take it you've never seen an Awoken before?"

Asseylum felt her cheeks colouring.

"I'm sorry, I hadn't meant to stare. But...no, I haven't."

The Titan shrugged, apparently not offended.

"You probably died before our race evolved out on the Reef – that's _way_ out in the asteroid belt, by the way – but we're humans, like you. Just...blue. Or sometimes grey. And with glowing eyes. We may have adapted this way for living in the asteroid belt, though no one really knows."

It was admittedly a lot for the new Guardian to take in, so she tried to offer her best friendly smile.

"I...think I might understand, now. Thank you, Miss Ali."

The blue-haired Awoken gave a dismissive wave of her hand, albeit not in a rude manner.

"Don't mention it...and no need to be so formal. Oh, but I never did catch your name."

She could feel the colour rise to her cheeks once more in chagrin. Not that there had been much of an opportunity to exchange pleasantries until now, but she could have at least given her name earlier.

"I'm sorry, how rude of me. My name is Asseylum Vers Allusia, although I'm afraid that's all I can remember."

Ali answered her with a shrug.

"That's all most of us can remember when our Ghosts first revive us. Sometimes we recover our memories, but there are Guardians out there who have been around for years who still don't remember anything but their names. So don't sweat it."

The Titan grinned once again.

"At any rate, it's a pleasure to meet you, and welcome to the City. We should hit the Bazaar sometime...there's a curry place that's to die for. Lucky for us, our Ghosts can just revive us."

The flaxen-haired Warlock answered the admittedly silly quip with a couple of blinks before she giggled softly.

"Aha...it's nice to meet you, too. I'd love to join you there sometime." This 'curry place' _did_ sound interesting.

The Awoken woman grinned again before waving a hand to a passageway at the far end of the courtyard. "I can take you there after you go talk to your rep. Your Ghost probably already told you about Ikora, I take it?"

Beside Asseylum, her Ghost re-materialised and huffed, sounding offended.

"Of course I did," it protested mildly.

Ali held up her hands in a placating gesture, and the blonde had to stifle a giggle with her hand at the exchange.

"Relax, I wasn't doubting you," the blue-haired woman reassured. "But you barely had time to go into much detail from what I saw, what with an entire platoon of Fallen freaking out on you. In any case, Ikora will probably be able to answer just about any question you throw at her, so you shouldn't keep her waiting."

The elder Guardian paused as she considered something.

"Oh, and when you're done, just go up the stairs on either side, take a left through the alleyway, then all the way past the fancy portal to the balcony and take a right. There's a library where I'll be."

Ali grinned again, and Asseylum was beginning to wonder if that was her default expression. Her humour seemed to be punctuated with the occasional bouts of seriousness, rather than the other way around as the blonde would have expected in their situation.

"And trust me, no matter how long your meeting goes, I'll still be there. It's practically my second home."

The golden-haired Sunsinger offered her a parting smile.

"Thank you. I'm very grateful for all your help."

As she started towards the hall, Ali's parting words followed her across the courtyard.

"By the way...the curry place is open until 21:00!"

= \|/ =

Situated at the end of the courtyard, a wide stairwell leading downwards split into two sections, divided by a wall bearing a gold escutcheon. Asseylum paused to study it briefly in an attempt to isolate the different devices of the coat-of-arms. It proved impossible; each of the four divisions merely bore unfamiliar geometric designs. What each field was designed to represent, the green-eyed Guardian was unable to figure out. Hopefully that was a question that wasn't outside Ikora's knowledge.

She turned her head to regard two other Warlocks who had just entered the stairwell; both seemed just barely out of boyhood. Were they new Guardians just as she was?

"Hello," Asseylum greeted the two with what she hoped was a friendly smile. "I'm sorry if I'm assuming, but...are you two also...?"

The blonde hesitated just before using the term Ali had used. She hadn't minded – not having completely understood the implications – but could that be said for others? For all she knew, they might be offended by it.

The blond one – slightly taller than the brunet – smiled with equal friendliness yet with a hint of bashfulness.

"'Kinderguardians', I think the word is?" he offered helpfully. "Actually...yes. Speaking for myself, this is the first time I've even been here."

Strangely, the russet-eyed Guardian beside him simply regarded her without any sort of expression at all. _Maybe he's just very shy? s_ he considered.

"We're going to be delayed again if we continue further," he responded in a bland, rather brusque monotone. Then again, it seemed important that they speak with their representative soon. It stood to reason they were there for the same thing.

"You're right, I'm very sorry."

Nevertheless, the blond young man sighed. "I'll explain more later, but Inaho...most people consider that to be rude."

While the facial expression of the one named Inaho didn't exactly change, the slight cant of his head suggested confusion.

"Why? It's the truth, and you agreed earlier. We have already postponed our meeting by approximately four minutes and twenty-three seconds."

Asselyum could only stare at the strange brunet, not altogether different from the stare his companion was likewise giving him.

"How did you..." he appeared to collect himself quickly enough, shaking his head as if to clear it. "Never mind. Like I said, I'll explain later."

He flashed another almost-apologetic smile at her.

"I'm Slaine Troyard. It's nice to meet you."

The brunet hesitated at first before replying in the same somewhat brusque manner that he had before.

"Kaizuka Inaho."

In turn, the Sunsinger offered them her best friendly smile.

"I'm Asseylum Vers Allusia," she replied. "It's nice to meet you, too. Well, shall we go?"

* * *

Inaho hadn't exactly been impatient to meet with the Vanguard Warlock representative, but he disliked procrastinating on what was necessary. He particularly disliked it when there was the promise of something else that he wanted to do, and leaving current chores undone first would not be a prudent decision. First, he would attend the briefing, then he would have Slaine explain all those confusing parts of social interaction that he didn't understand so that he could avoid problems in the future, and once all that was done he could finally locate a source of information about this curious new reality. And he had to admit that Slaine was interesting company; if he wanted to come along and research as well, Inaho would hardly mind.

In the present, however, he was having considerable difficulty reconciling the matter of their division's representative. He supposed that perhaps Ikora Rey could be labelled a 'philosopher-warrior', a concept that – strangely – he had few problems understanding for some yet-unknown reason. But something within his subconscious seemed to want to reject the idea of a real-life wizard, of someone who possessed abilities far beyond what human beings were naturally capable of, owing to forces which could not be explained or understood via scientific knowledge. Others might simply relegate their abilities as Warlocks to the realm of magic, but his logical mind outright rejected such superstitious nomenclature.

There was a logical explanation somewhere...it was merely a question of finding it.

But more importantly, there were more immediate concerns. Before he could go hunting for whatever repositories or database access points existed within the City, he should really find some suitable quarters, and then secure reliable food sources before hunting down sturdier clothing...

"Is that acceptable?" a soft alto voice interrupted his train of thought.

Just as he was wondering what he had missed when he was mentally running through the list of necessities, he had apparently been asked a question. Slaine, on the other hand, had been paying attention.

"I don't have a problem with it if Inaho doesn't, ma'am."

The brunet blinked.

"Have a problem with what?"

The dark-complexioned Warlock's eyebrows raised slightly as she regarded him, while the blond beside him sighed softly.

"You really should pay better attention when our superiors are debriefing us," he scolded mildly, closing his eyes and shaking his head before regarding him again. "She asked if, since we're still settling in, we would be fine with rooming together in the Tower barracks."

Inaho mulled over the idea for a moment, quickly deciding that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

"I agree, it would be practical to do so."

He wasn't entirely certain why he had to pay attention to their representative addressing the issue of where Asseylum would reside, coming to an agreement to board with someone the blonde had apparently met prior to their own meeting. After all, it would be much more efficient to return to his list of necessities...at least until Ikora began to address the war itself.

"Without going into too much detail, we have found ourselves fighting a war on multiple fronts. Whether or not the Darkness is manipulating our enemies directly, indirectly, or it is merely opportunism with our compromised defences, there are four factions which are openly hostile to humanity and to Guardians in particular. Unless otherwise engaged with each other, they will fire on sight. Remain vigilant at all times in the field."

Once more, his companion possessed what could only be military bearing when interacting with the Vanguard representative.

"Yes, ma'am."

Though he was unable to read Ikora's expression in reaction to such treatment, if the words following it were anything to go by, such a reaction was an abnormal one to her.

"While I find your manners to be rather refreshing..." she paused while slowly turning to cast an equally-unreadable glance at the Exo behind her. There was a stifled noise which might have been a laugh from the cyborg, though Inaho suspected he wasn't trying very hard.

"...You need not be quite so formal," Ikora continued. "The Vanguard isn't a military organisation. Even Zavala would agree, regardless of how he manages his Titans."

The exasperated sigh from the opposite end of the table was fortunately much easier to read. There, the heavily-armoured man with a shaven head appeared human enough, with only indicators of a distinct racial offshoot being glowing blue eyes and pale, greyish-violet skin.

At first, it appeared as if he was about to say something before simply shaking his head and returning to what work he was already doing. Inaho was not of an especially sympathetic mindset, but something told him he could relate.

On the other hand, Ikora merely smiled – or perhaps smirked, Inaho wasn't entirely sure – before continuing.

"Needless to say, we don't stand on ceremony. All that's expected of you is to take the fight to our enemies, protect humanity, and search for ways to help the Traveller."

Again, her expression changed, but this time he might have caught a hint of enthusiasm to it...though he couldn't be sure.

"And as Warlocks, there's some incentive to finding artefacts from the Golden Age. Even things which seem as if they are nothing more than scrap can be useful. Even now, the more exploration-inclined Guardians are bringing back artefacts which may have been pieces of an unusual form of weapon. Like Frames, but on a much larger scale."

At that, Inaho was finally paying full attention. A quick sideways glance at his companion told him that he too was very interested in what this might mean...not to mention a hint of shared recognition. The sideways glance back at him hinted that Slaine had probably noticed the shared interest in the subject.

"We'll keep an eye out for them," the blond replied with one final sideways glance at Inaho.

He saw no logical reason to refuse.

"Agreed."

* * *

Diya had been in for the shock of two lifetimes when she touched down at the Tower after a brief stop at a village some ways beyond the City walls for special ammo. While she had long ago realised it was not outside the realm of possibility to find someone from her past life, the Bladedancer had given up after centuries without encountering anyone she had known. Not that she had been actively looking; the thought of most of the people in her past left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Which was why her bile had reached critical levels to see the person responsible for at least a good portion of the pain in her life all over again. Not that it was _entirely_ his fault, but still.

 _Why_ now _?_ Diya silently demanded of the Traveller, as if it could read her thoughts. _Why_ him _?_

A familiar white-haired, grey-skinned presence smirked at her with folded arms as he leaned with a languid, feline grace against a wall at the base of the stairs, golden irises glowing in the faint light.

"Enjoy babysitting duty?" he taunted.

"Not _now_ , Jaed," she growled in warning, not even so much as sparing a glance at the Awoken on her way past. The Striker Titan was a constant thorn in her side, a hyper-competitive idiot who apparently considered the Hunter his rival for some unfathomable reason. He never seemed to be able to beat her in the Crucible – the training competition which pitted Guardians against other Guardians – but that alone shouldn't have made him so obsessed with gaining a one-up on her.

Something in her thunderous expression must have warned him that she was not in the mood to deal with him today, because the almost ever-present smirk dropped from his face. He almost seemed sympathetic, of all things.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Diya sighed, stopping in her tracks. Jaed was a right jerk many times, but she'd had enough proper manners beaten into her in her previous life to at least give a halfway polite response.

"No," she admitted. "It's not something I really want to think about now...or ever, actually. Just some bad memories I'd rather forget about."

"It's beyond fucked up how that is," he responded, still managing to keep things civil. "Those of us who can't remember shit wish we could, and those of you who _can_ wish they didn't."

His smirk now was one of bitter irony.

"It'd be nice if the Traveller could swap us, huh?"

Commiserating with someone who was normally trading insults with her was definitely one of Diya's stranger experiences. Pity that tomorrow Jaed would probably be back to being his usual asshole self. She wasn't sure whether she should draw this out for the novelty or end the conversation before things started to go metaphorically south and ruin the moment.

In the end, the Bladedancer opted for the latter.

"Yeah...well, thanks anyway. I'd better go check on my ship and give my report to Cayde before he starts bitching about not being told anything. Say hi to Al and Markus for me."

She almost regretted ending it early, because if the Striker had what he thought was a witty retort, he exercised enough sense not to share it.

"Sure. See ya 'round," Jaed replied before heading back out toward the courtyard.

Diya usually preferred to get her reports out of the way first so she could get out of Vanguard Hall that much faster, but this time she went to the hangar first and lingered long enough to shoot the breeze with the shipwright. Amanda Holliday was as sharp as a Hunter's knife and Diya held no illusions that the Bladedancer was deliberately procrastinating on something by loitering, even if the blonde withheld comment on it.

Yet, she couldn't bring herself to leave just yet, not when Slaine Troyard might still be where she needed to go. She would just have to deal with Cayde's heckling as the necessary price.

* * *

 **Author's notes:** Seriously missed my self-imposed deadline, I know. Looking back, it wouldn't have been realistic even if I hadn't been devoured by stuff like Warmind. But RL cannot stop this fic, dammit.

I'm sorry about the lack of shooting/Hunterstabbing/Titanpunching/Warlockslapping in this chapter, (and so far, it looks the the next one) but there will be plenty to go around from Chapter 7 onward. But well, everyone did need to meet and get situated before going off to make the Fallen/Vex/Cabal/Hive/Taken regret coming to the Sol system. And sorry about jumping around with the perspectives here, but everything would have been crammed into a single POV if I hadn't broken them up they way I did.

To the non-players confused by the opening dialogue, don't worry if you didn't understand a word of it. That part of the scene is actually dual-purpose. For non-players, it's a little piece to help empathise with Inaho's confusion at essentially being thrown into the deep end of a pool while only just starting how to learn to swim. He's just as clueless as you guys are.

At the same time, it's a little red meat for the player crowd who might be amused at the idea of Orbital Knights being those Crucible players. Y'all know who I'm writing about: those blueberries who are so focused in their individual KDRs that they never pick up the damn spark in Rift (back in D1, anyway. RIP Rift) and your team ends up losing because oops, it's not Clash or Rumble. I regularly make jokes in team chat about these guys being like Orbital Knights. "Muh Kills!" "Yeah, you still lost, dumbass."

Lastly, for the players: yes, the Frame there is in fact Rusty the Sweeper Bot from Byf's April Fool's video.

Titular song: Bad Company – Seagull

Insert music: Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, Martin O Donnell – Guardian  
Sawano Hiroyuki – Ver$  
Michael Salvatori, C Paul Johnson, Martin O Donnell – The Tower


End file.
